


Dear Annie

by Mara



Category: StarTrek: Enterprise
Genre: Episode Related, Epistolary, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-25
Updated: 2009-11-25
Packaged: 2017-10-03 18:10:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 33
Words: 38,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mara/pseuds/Mara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>This is completely unrelated to my other Hoshi story, "The Fear." Oh, the coprolite story is true and belongs to anthropologist Aubrey Williams of the University of Maryland, College Park. If you don't know what coprolites are...you've never done archaeology . Thanks to Captain Average for the fast beta, so I could post this on my lunch hour!</p><p>For Jessica, who is very far away and a damn good linguist. Stay safe, my friend.</p>
        </blockquote>





	1. After "Shuttlepod One"

Dear Annie:

I wish we could talk live, but between Enterprise's precarious connection to Earth and your usual inaccessibility--which country *are* you in these days?--I thought I should just go ahead and send an ordinary message. It'll catch up with you eventually.

I know you haven't heard much from me since the Enterprise lifted off, and that's because I've been busy and a little lazy. Adventure just isn't all it's cracked up to be, let me tell you. I know you thought being the linguist and comm officer on the Enterprise would be a wonderful experience for me, and in some ways you're right...but I've been bumped and bruised and bedazzled and bewildered so many times that I'm never sure if I'm coming or going.

All those stories you told me about your fieldwork in New Guinea? Hah! I'll give you those and raise you dead alien bodies hanging off meat hooks like a bizarre slaughterhouse. The time you were stranded in the Sahara with a broken comm link and three days of water? Please. I've got a story about a smelly Klingon ship with a deteriorating orbit and a lot of torpedoes going boom. I was so scared, I had to be saved by our resident Vulcan.

And I know you love to wow the undergrads with the story about collecting coprolites in a Mexican village while in fear for your life lest they mistake you for a witch...but we nearly lost our top three officers to the Andorians and then the Andorians saved them from the Coridians. You need a score card to keep track of who's who out here, and even that won't necessarily help.

The Vulcans are our allies, except for when they're not. The Andorians, well, we're not quite sure about them at the best of times. We liked the Xyrillians, except for the minor energy parasitism and the bit where they got our chief engineer pregnant. Yeah, you *do* remember correctly, our chief engineer *is* a man. Don't ask.

But the languages. Man oh man, that's what keeps me going. It feels like everyday there's a new language to translate, changes to incorporate into the Universal Translator (which isn't, by the way), and new aliens to communicate with. Or misunderstand, as the case may be.

But heck, we don't even fully understand the *Vulcans* yet, so how can I expect to completely understand these aliens we've known for a few hours? At least the Captain seems to know that, but those are the times I wish you were here. What a team we'd make! The aliens would never know what hit them.

So, that's my life out here in a nutshell. I'll bet you're wondering why I finally got around to writing you *now*, as opposed to in the last six months or so. I guess it's because of a recent experience, not something that happened to me, but that happened to two of my crewmates.

We nearly lost them.

And not because they were saving the universe from destruction, or otherwise doing something heroic. They nearly died on a routine mission because of something idiotic. The long and short of it is, they thought Enterprise had been destroyed. They got stuck in a shuttlepod off the beaten path of interstellar commerce, thinking they were going to die. They were hit by a...well, the Captain and Commander T'Pol haven't agreed on what hit them yet, but they were very low on oxygen.

And while they were preparing to die, we were blithely traveling along to the rendezvous, without the faintest idea what was going on. Malcolm and Trip came within a few hours of dying, and we nearly didn't find them in time.

It shook me up, I guess, how close I came to losing two friends, and I started thinking about you and the rest of the gang. I could die out here without ever seeing you again, some misogynistic farmer could kill you during your fieldwork, or Mark could fall into one of his pits.

Nearly losing Trip and Malcolm made me think about how much I value my friends, but how much I take you for granted.

I haven't figured out, exactly, what I'm going to do with this new awareness of mine, but I thought dropping you a line was a good start.

Here on the ship, I guess I'm going to take a little more time to get to know people. Of course, that shouldn't be too hard when it comes to Commander Tucker. You remember, he's the engineer you saw on the news and told me was "damn sexy." Trip's a sucker for a lady, and all I need to do is bat my eyelashes.

That makes him sound like a womanizer, but that's not what I mean. He's a sweetie, with quite the sense of humor, and a gentleman to boot.

I've known Jonathan, I mean Captain Archer, since well before this assignment, but even before he became my Captain (oh, that came out wrong, you know what I mean) he wasn't easy to get to know. And around here it's worse than academia! At least I could spend time with my students without it becoming a capital case. They take rank so seriously, which I find amusing. Well, we must allow the boys their games, right?

I'm not sure how easy T'Pol will be to get to know. She and the Captain seem to understand each other, but she's not exactly into girl-to-girl talks in the mess hall. I'll try, though. If nothing else, I can practice my Vulcan.

I think it's essential that we get to know T'Pol. Do you realize she's lasted longer on this ship than any other Vulcan on a human ship? We need to figure out what we're doing right. Or what *she's* doing right. Another reason I wish you were here.

Then there's Malcolm Reed, our armory officer. He's even harder to get to know. That man is more private than anyone I've ever met. Remind me to tell you the saga of the birthday cake, someday when we have a few hours. He makes T'Pol look like a chatterbox, I swear, but he can be charming when he wants to.

Don't make that face at the screen, Annie, I mean it. I know you, you read that last paragraph and immediately thought of Eric. Well, Malcolm is *nothing* like Eric, and I haven't forgotten the lessons learned from that debacle. I promise. Besides, I didn't even say I was interested in him. I mean, I'm not. Probably. I'll let you know.

There are so many others, Travis, Dr. Phlox...I want to get to know all of them. If something happens, I want to be sure someone will remember them. I want everyone to know that I would mourn their loss.

I didn't mean to descend into doom and gloom, so I'll stop now before I start updating my will. I should get back to work, in any case. We'll be in orbit around this new planet (new to us, I mean) in a few days, and the Captain wants his greeting prepared in advance. In their native language, of course. It's got some interesting fricatives and...oh, never mind, you'll want to know about their food preparation methods not their language. I'll try and get you some of the preliminary reports on them as well as the other species we've met.

Just in case my message to Mark doesn't reach him, be sure to ask "Found any gold yet?" for me in a really obnoxious voice. And tell Tracy her help with Vulcan has come in handy.

I miss you, Annie. Be well and keep yourself safe. I plan to have all my friends around until we're old and gray.

Love,  
Hoshi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is completely unrelated to my other Hoshi story, "The Fear." Oh, the coprolite story is true and belongs to anthropologist Aubrey Williams of the University of Maryland, College Park. If you don't know what coprolites are...you've never done archaeology . Thanks to Captain Average for the fast beta, so I could post this on my lunch hour!
> 
> For Jessica, who is very far away and a damn good linguist. Stay safe, my friend.


	2. After "Fusion"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank to everyone who took the time to say they liked Hoshi's first letter. Feedback does a body good . Thanks again to Captain Average for the beta.

Dear Annie,

As promised, here I am again, remembering to catch you up on the events of the day...month...whatever. I'm glad my last message reached you in good health, and I'm thrilled to hear your news about Sarit, she deserves all the good luck in the world! Tell her I said she'll knock 'em dead at Bar Ilan.

As for what's happening out here, well, I never knew that mapping could be so exciting. Not the job of mapping, exactly, but who we had helping us. Would be believe renegade Vulcans?

Apparently, they took off in this ship with the goal of integrating emotion with logic. T'Pol says this is pretty dangerous, and if even half of what the rumor mill and the official log say are true, T'Pol may well be right.

Of course, I was out of the loop for most of the goings on, what with no new languages to learn. But, when I wasn't helping with the mapping or routing calls to and from Vulcan and Earth, I did get a chance to speak to their comm officer, and I gave him some help in upgrading their communications capabilities.

Don't laugh, I did admit you were right about those extra electronics courses way back when. And they came in handy before this, remember? I *know* I told you about the incident with the donkey and the waterfall.

So, I chatted up their comm officer, and if seven months ago you'd told me I'd meet a Vulcan who could chat, I'd have laughed you out of the room. Their small talk abilities still leave a little to be desired, but I did learn a bit about them. They've got some intriguing ideas. Just imagine: the formidable Vulcan intellect matched with emotional range. And it seems like most of them are managing pretty well, although there's a rumor about one...but it's only a rumor.

The past few days have been a real roller coaster, though. Here we were, a batch of humans out in the middle of deep space, working with a ship full of Vulcans getting in touch with their emotions.

And, didn't *that* put the fox in the henhouse. (Oh, good grief, I'm starting to sound like Trip. I think it's the curse of the linguist, not only to pick up language, but to pick up dialect as well.) In any case, Trip described these Vulcans as "more fun than a barrel of monkeys" (although I'm pretty certain *that* was intended to be sarcastic) and had a grand time doing male bonding activities with their engineer. This included, my informants tell me, sitting around with Malcolm in the mess hall asking about Vulcan sex. Why they wanted to know, I leave as an exercise for the reader.

And they weren't the only ones acting odd. First, the Captain snookers T'Pol into spending time on the Vulcan ship, then he acts like a broody hen (see, there I go with the animals again, definitely too much time with a certain dashing engineer) when she starts spending time with one of them. Maybe he's the one who wanted to know about Vulcan sex. As far as I can tell, most of the male population of this ship is interested in Vulcan sex.

Do I sound a little bitter? I shouldn't be, I suppose. It's not as if T'Pol encourages them, and the lure of the exotic and the unattainable has always been strong for the male of our species. Look at Eric and whatshername.

I suppose the theme around here *has* been strong emotion of one variety or another. The Captain and I seem to be getting jealous, most of the men are polishing up their lust, the Vulcan engineer had a brush with regret according to Trip, and T'Pol is getting in touch with some emotion or other, but definitely not any of the good ones. I'm not sure what happened, but it left her in sick bay, and she's looked absolutely terrible ever since.

I'm worried about her, actually. I mean, this is the woman who came back from being held hostage by the Andorians and *then* by the Coridians and the only reaction was a briefly raised eyebrow and a comment about their "incivility." And after a few days with other Vulcans, she looks like she's seen the coming apocalypse.

I tried to talk to her--she's helped me with my claustrophobia, I wanted to return the favor--but I got a brush-off. I'll try to be around in case she decides to talk about it. I can't force her to talk to me, all I can do is worry.

All of this got me thinking about emotions. How did they evolve? What purpose do they serve? What exactly do Vulcans give up by suppressing their emotions? Sometimes, it seems like it might be nice to avoid embarrassment, regret, sadness, anger, irritation, but I'm not sure what I would do without joy or pride or that feeling I get in my stomach when speaking to a handsome man.

I guess that's the heart of the problem in Vulcan/human interaction: our emotions weave their way through everything we do. They don't control us (as the Vulcans seem to think), but they tie our lives together, they make our experiences more intense, sometimes in a good way, sometimes bad.

If I were Vulcan, Eric couldn't have hurt me so badly, but I also wouldn't feel the triumph when I save everybody's butts around here. If I were Vulcan, I would just meditate away loneliness, but I wouldn't feel the awe when we see a portion of space no human has ever seen before.

That's what being human is all about, isn't it? Trade-offs.

See, there I go getting all philosophical and dumping doom and gloom on you again. Probably residue from late night bull sessions in your dorm room. Well, make sure you give everyone my love, and if you want more detail on these Vulcans, let me know and I'll send you a copy of the long letter I sent to Tracy. I knew she'd kill me if she didn't get a full report. As long as she cites me in the inevitable journal article!

Speaking of Tracy, did you hear from Jake? Can you believe he and Misha have a baby? Those boys still seem like babies to me. I told them to take better care of the baby than they did of the goldfish.

Time to get some sleep, I think. Tomorrow *should* be quiet, since we're still en route to our next destination, but you can't take anything for granted in deep space.

I suppose that's half the fun.

Love,  
Hoshi


	3. After "Rogue Planet"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why did the translator give the pig things an alien name, but only name the Wraiths with an English word? Consistency, thy name is not Star Trek. Thanks as always to the charming and talented Captain Average for the beta.
> 
> Once again, for Jessica. Because I miss her and I worry about her and she is searching for the apparently unattainable: peace in the Middle East.

Dear Annie,

When a member of a telepathic species talks to another member of that species, what language do they use?

Sounds like "if a tree falls in a forest...," doesn't it? Well, I was *this* close to getting a chance to test it, but we had to get out of Dodge before these hunters...

But, I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I? The abridged version: we found these hunters from a species called the Eska on a rogue planet and at first, we thought they were hunting these pig-like things. That's what they told the Captain, T'Pol, Malcolm and me when we found them. Okay, when they found us.

Then, after I came back up to the ship--there were nasty, fluorescent bugs, need I say more?--Jon discovered they were actually hunting these things they called "Binna," which the translator rendered as "Wraiths." They are sentient, telepathic shapeshifters.

I have to write that again, just because it amuses me. Sentient. Telepathic. Shapeshifters. "Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it's stranger than we *can* imagine." I can't remember who said that--JBS Haldane? Arthur C. Clarke?--but I can't help but think life out here proves it.

To make a long story short, Jon communicated with one of the Wraiths and Dr. Phlox came up with a way to confound the hunters and once again we saved the day.

I dragged most of the story out of Trip later, and apparently Jon's encounter with these aliens started with him chasing what he thought was a young human woman in a nightgown. (We're all hoping that she was using her telepathy to draw him out, and that he wouldn't *normally* chase women through the woods, especially on alien planets that couldn't *possibly* have a human woman.)

It's all kind of complicated, but the woman he saw (besides obviously being one of these Wraiths) represented an idealized vision from his childhood. Trip says Jon was pretty weirded out by the whole experience, but I think Trip is the one who was weirded out by Jon's calm reaction to having his head messed with.

In any case, the experience of encountering these shapeshifters made me wonder if the Vulcans don't have the right idea with vegetarianism. (Yeah, I know, you've been saying so for years, and why didn't I listen to you?) In the short time I was on the planet, I ate some of the pig-creature, but what if it had turned out to be one of these shapeshifters? What if we'd accidentally eaten a sentient being? It makes me sick to think about it.

Malcolm and Jon were having entirely too much fun traipsing around in the jungle. The testosterone level got a bit high there for awhile, and I was glad to have T'Pol there to keep them from going completely over the edge. Then, Malcolm asked if he could join them on the hunt, and I was really disturbed by how eager he was to go along, even if he did promise not to kill anything. It's one thing to like things that go "boom" and another...well, I guess we're back to the vegetarian thing again.

I was happy to get back to Enterprise and away from the insect life (did I mention the borers?), but I worried about the team the entire time they were down there. That may be the worst part, waiting for an away team to come back.

Then they called to sickbay, saying they had someone wounded, and I wanted to scream. I didn't even think it might be one of the Eskan hunters, I was just imagining Trip, Malcolm, Jon or T'Pol bleeding to death in the shuttle. Scary. I felt a little better when Travis looked nearly as scared as I did. Well, he's got that hero worship thing going with the Captain, so I'm not surprised.

Do you remember that Dr. Sindel we both had a crush on as undergrads? I wish he'd been half as worthy of our hero worship, as Captain Archer is of Travis'. Although, for the sake of our stress level, it would be nice if the Captain wasn't so prone to wandering off by himself into dangerous situations. Malcolm's not the only one who wishes he were a tad less hands-on sometimes, but good luck with *that*.

Thinking of things we'll never succeed with, I can't stop thinking about the Wraith's parting words to the Captain: to keep searching for the unattainable. I don't know if that's what we're doing out here, but I'd hate to think so. Maybe it was supposed to sound noble, but it just sounds hopeless to me.

It strikes me as so fatalistic, but maybe I'd be fatalistic if I were part of a species that had been hunted for hundreds of years. Ugh, what a horrible thought, living on a planet that never sees the sun, and every few years a bunch of over-muscled, heavily-armed beings lands their ship and tries to kill you for a few days.

I wonder what the Wraith saw in Jon's mind that translated to the concept of searching for the unattainable. What *are* all of us searching for out here?

I guess I'm searching for more data, more languages, more understanding. That may be neverending, but it's not unattainable. T'Pol, well, she's hard to read, but I think she just might be searching for understanding as well, understanding about what makes humans tick. Difficult, tricky even, but not unattainable. The same is true for Dr. Phlox, I think he sticks with us for the occasional glimpse into the human psyche, or the alien psyche for that matter.

Jon, Trip, Malcolm, and Travis have always made me think they were looking for adventure, excitement, new experiences. Jon is living out his father's dream, exploring the universe and representing humanity. Trip wants to make his beloved engines work better, and find new toys to play with, like the Vulcan tractor beam. Malcolm wants to find things to blow up, I suppose. Travis just wants to go farther faster than he could on his home ship, see more than just a small corner of the universe.

That's really true for a lot of the crew. They're in it for discovery, for excitement, for adventure out here on the frontier of the known human universe. I'm not sure I'm quite as sanguine about the whole adventure thing, but I'm learning. I'm hanging in there, getting used to space travel, I suppose.

I've been missing you a lot lately, but I'm sure you're keeping busy, especially with Amanda in your life. She sounds really nice, but I wish I were there to check her out. Can't have someone hurting my best friend, can I? I know...I'll have Mark check her out for me, because he's *so* subtle. No, you're right, that would be cruel to her. I'll just have to trust you've made a good choice. (Which reminds me, send me some details on Jerry and Rowena's wedding. I didn't expect them to ever go through with it.)

Stay safe, don't follow any beautiful women into the forest (it would annoy Amanda), and keep in touch. I hope you find whatever *you're* searching for!

Love,  
Hoshi


	4. After "Acquisition"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm probably veering off canon here, but how could I resist writing this? Especially since TPTB won't, because they seem to start each episode with a clean slate, character-wise. And yes, I *could* have written a thoughtful and interesting letter about the deleterious effects of greed, but I didn't. Nyah nyah. Ferengi do not inspire profundity. As always, thanks to Captain Average for the beta.
> 
> This letter is dedicated to the amazing and wonderful Josephine for convincing Trip to let her use the transporters long enough to get me a tape of this episode. May the universe provide you as much Trip-in-boxers as you want.

Dear Annie,

Just when I think I've gotten the hang of this space travel thing, everything goes wonky. And, before you ask, on the Enterprise, wonky *is* a technical term. And this time...wow, I'm not sure wonky covers the full magnitude of Trip's behavior, let alone the aliens. I hope you've got some free time, because this is a long story, even with lots of irrelevant bits cut out.

Once again I missed all the really exciting parts of our latest adventure, which, in this case, may be a good thing, since I'm neither the fastest nor the best shot on the ship. I slept through the excitement, in fact. Literally. These dreadful greedy little aliens tricked Trip into bringing on board an artifact that released some kind of knock-out gas. Since he was in the decon chamber, he stayed awake while the rest of us (except poor little Porthos) were out cold. (This may be a lesson to us about picking up strange and apparently abandoned artifacts.)

And while we were unconscious, who knows what the aliens were doing to us. I know I was moved off the bridge. Ick, it makes my skin crawl. Mainly, though, they were looting the ship of anything of any potential value.

The really strange thing was how vague Jon and Trip were about certain events. (Oh, I forgot to mention the aliens woke the Captain up to ask where our storage vault was, and Trip managed to wake up T'Pol. Trip says he tried to wake me up next, and T'Pol backs him up. No, that's not the really strange part, I'm getting there.)

So, I read the Captain's report and it was pretty clear how the three of them befuddled and confused and tricked these aliens. Except for one part, where he says that he and Trip were captured and Trip convinced them all to walk into a trap.

Somehow, he never quite explains *how* they got them to go. I was curious, so I asked Trip about it. Instead of a straight answer, he got the strangest look on his face and said, and I quote, "The Cap'n and I pretended to argue, and they bought it."

Since that was essentially all the report to Starfleet said, I asked what they argued over and he said, "Oh, over the most valuable item on the ship." Then, engineering conveniently called him away to check on repairs to the warp injector.

Well, you know me, incapable of leaving a mystery alone. I figured it was probably something silly, but it's not like those two to be evasive, so I couldn't resist picking at it.

I tried the Captain, but he politely referred me to the official report and Trip, and Trip was up to his neck in putting the ship back together.

T'Pol considered my question for a few long moments, then pointed out she was engaged in setting the trap while the two of them were with the aliens. "However," she told me, "I can tell you this species was most interested in acquiring two things: gold-pressed latinum and female members of the crew to sell in a slave market. In fact, I overheard the Captain attempting to convince them that I was not interesting enough to take."

You can just imagine my jaw dropping at that, can't you? Somehow, the Captain left that out of his public report, although perhaps it's in the classified sections. Well, at that point, I was *really* curious about what happened when T'Pol wasn't there.

I took a day to ponder, then I had a good idea. The Captain really only confides in Trip, but Trip sometimes talks to one other person: Malcolm. The two of them have become friendly since they were trapped in that shuttle together. It's not all sweetness and light, but they've found common ground.

And since Malcolm's also head of security, it seemed like they might have discussed the events in detail, right?

So, I tracked down our intrepid armory officer, and cornered him in the empty messhall last night. To make a long discussion short, I finally got the story out of him. I think he'd been dying to tell me, but he cherishes the firm belief that he is not a gossip.

Okay, we've finally reached the wonky part. Are you ready? Are you sitting down? Don't say I didn't warn you.

Trip and the Captain needed to fake a fight over something, so Trip accused the Captain of not caring about the crew. Since these aliens were going to take us to sell at a slave market, Trip said they couldn't have his wife. One of the aliens who'd taken a shine to T'Pol was rather alarmed *she* might be Trip's wife, but Trip said, no, his wife's name was Hoshi.

Malcolm really enjoyed watching my reaction. I was actually speechless, if you can imagine such a thing; speechless for a good two or three minutes. My jaw moved, but nothing came out.

Why me? There are a couple dozen women on Enterprise, and the alien even asked if T'Pol was his wife, and he could have just said yes. But at that moment, with weapons pointed at him, he thought of *me*.

The two of them staged a fight over how much gold I was worth--I couldn't bear to ask what the answer was--and Trip told the aliens they could take our gold as long as he got to keep his wife. I mean, keep me.

It was all play-acting, though, right? I asked Malcolm that, and the man had the gall to say "You'll have to ask Trip, won't you?" I think he is enjoying the results of this whole situation entirely too much, between getting to surprise me, and the Captain *finally* listening to him about implementing more security, especially around away missions.

Then, Malcolm left me sitting in the messhall staring out at the stars, trying to figure out how I'm feeling about this. It was just a gimmick, wasn't it? Something to distract the aliens? But Trip told me they were arguing over the most valuable item on the ship. He must have meant the female crewmembers. Not me. Right?

I shouldn't be feeling so...so warm and fuzzy about this. Especially since Trip's been avoiding me since then. Every time he sees me, he gets the same funny look and runs in the other direction. I think Malcolm told him I know what happened.

I can't believe how flummoxed I am over this. I wasn't even thinking about Trip in that way! Sure, we spend time together and he's a lot of fun, but he's not my type. You know that. I like guys like Malcolm, quiet and sensitive, a little shy.

But Malcolm doesn't seem terribly devastated over this (more like amused), so he can't have been mooning over me. I don't know that he stirs any strong emotions in me, either. But he's restful, which Trip most assuredly is not.

So--I ask my old friend who knows me better than anyone in the universe--why am I spending half my free time analyzing the behavior of the man I wasn't interested in while he was under duress? Have I just developed some strange form of claustrophobia? Space sickness? Temporary insanity?

Okay, I really need to go get dressed, my shift begins in half an hour. Love to everyone (especially Amanda).

Love,  
Hoshi


	5. After "Oasis"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Geez, if Hoshi doesn't get some screen time soon, I'm gonna have to give up on writing these! And it took me about a zillion times longer to write this letter than usual because my Hoshi muse thought the whole episode was fairly stupid.
> 
> I'm grateful to Captain Average for the encouragement, the beta, and a good suggestion for this letter (which I pretty much stole verbatim). Um, and a quick note of apology to downinnewyork for T/S shippiness...Sorry, dear.

Dear Annie,

Married only a little while and he's already cheating on me, can you believe it? Okay, I'm being melodramatic, considering Trip and I aren't really married, but you'd think the man would have learned his lesson from the time he got pregnant: Don't mess around with alien girls, they'll only break your heart.

I know you asked where Trip and I stand at the moment, and the answer is...heaven only knows. He seems to be taking the approach of pretending nothing strange ever happened, and if that's what he wants...well, there you are. I think you're right about why I find him appealing, though. The question remains, what do I *do* about it? I've never been one to chase a man, especially one who immediately went after another woman. I suppose I just read too much into a small incident.

I suppose it's not surprising that I was confused. Trip's relationships with women of *any* species are a bit odd. For instance, Trip and T'Pol have this strange not-quite-adversarial, not-quite-friendly, bickering thing going on.

In any case, Trip found himself an alien girl a few days ago, a pretty blonde thing and she was an engineer, too. No way for a simple linguist to compete with a woman who can talk engines with him.

And Malcolm managed to get himself shot, *again*. I know he's our security officer, but doesn't that mean he's supposed to know how to keep from getting shot in the first place? I'm starting to worry about him.

But it was a strange situation all around. We found this supposedly abandoned ship on an empty world. I say supposedly, because the merchant who told us about it also said it was supposed to be haunted. Yes, that's haunted as in ghosts, spectres, beings from the "other side." Color me skeptical.

But when the away team went down to scavenge some parts and material from this ship, they started seeing things the tricorders didn't register. Turns out there were these people living there, carefully hidden in a shielded part of the ship. They came out and scared the heck out of anyone who tried to loot the ship, thus creating the image of a haunted ship.

I'll skip the lies we were told originally and jump straight to the upshot: Liana (the aforementioned blonde) and her father, Ezral, were the only people actually living on the ship, all the other members of the crew were sophisticated *holograms*. They'd been living there for 20 years, since the ship crashed, with just the holograms for company. Kind of creepy, if you ask me.

So, instead of getting materials from the ship, the Captain ended up depleting our stores further, helping them to repair their ship so they could return home.

Somehow, this whole experience has left a bitter taste in my mouth, and I've been trying to figure out why. (That is, *other* than Trip mooning over Liana. I'm fairly certain I'm not that petty. Am I?) I think it has to do with honesty and trust.

It bothers me that Liana and her father lied to us over and over, but somehow nobody ever took them to task for that. It bothers me that Liana trusted Ezral to take care of her, but he marooned her on that planet. Instead of asking one of the ships that passed in the last 20 years for help, it took Trip yelling at him to get him moving.

I suppose that I should admire the Captain, Trip, and Liana for their ability to forgive and forget, but somehow I can't quite manage it. It seems like forgiveness should be preceded by some sort of regret on the part of the party who erred. I did manage to forgive Eric, after all, but only after he apologized for his behavior.

I'm also concerned that the Captain and Trip seem inclined to trust everybody we encounter, and Malcolm and T'Pol are inclined to trust nobody. I can only hope that they'll manage to balance each other out. (I'd be fairly pleased if I thought the Captain was paying more attention to Malcolm's security suggestions. I thought after the female portion of the crew was nearly sold into slavery, he'd learned a lesson, but apparently I was wrong.)

Speaking of "trust," apparently we can't trust Mark out without a keeper. I'm assuming you've heard about his little escapade in Oaxaca, and have teased him suitably for me. All the high technology available to him, and he manages to get lost within a 20 minute walk of the site? Unbelievable. If you get a chance, send him one of those kiddie GPS units for me, would you? You know, the ones that talk to you if you stray too far from your parents.

As for me, other than feeling a little disgruntled about Trip's odd behavior, I'm feeling a little claustrophobic on the ship again. Unfortunately, I'm also afraid to go down to any of the planets we visit, as well. Really, it reminds me of Dr. Gi's story about being caught in that revolution in El Salvador. You know, where she was afraid to stay, but afraid to try and leave the country? Now I understand the concept of being caught between Scylla and Charybdis better than I ever did.

Time for another lesson with T'Pol, perhaps. She really has been helping a lot, and she says I'm learning the techniques very rapidly (with "for a human" being the unspoken end to the sentence). It can't be soon enough for me, because I get the feeling it doesn't get easier from here on out.

Love,  
Hoshi


	6. After "Detained"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Star Trek is *so* subtle when it chooses to moralize, isn't it? Yeah, right. But hey, Hoshi actually appeared on screen, so life is good. Thanks as always to Captain Average, the rockin' superhero, who gave Travis his nickname.

Dear Annie,

The universe is a complicated place. Okay, I know that's not the most profound thing I've ever said, but life on the frontier ranges between profound and prosaic (or maybe between sublime and absurd). It reminds me a little bit of our undergraduate days, when we somehow moved between boredom and utter hysteria without ever touching down in the middle. (Remember the ice cream incident?)

Things were quite prosaic the other day, when Jon and Travis took out a shuttle to investigate some energy readings. Next thing we knew, they'd disappeared. To be honest, I was having flashbacks to when we nearly lost Trip and Malcolm in a shuttle. (I think they were, too, the boys both looked a little green around the gills.)

We spent a number of panicked hours trying to figure out how we'd misplaced our Captain (which Starfleet tends to frown on), before being contacted by a representative of a people called the Tandara, namely one Colonel Grat.

He immediately rubbed us the wrong way--partly because he sent off slimy vibes, but mainly because he said the Tandarans were keeping our crewmembers in a detention camp until they could go on trial for their accidental invasion of Tandaran space. I was so frustrated that I couldn't track his signal, I wanted to scream.

T'Pol and Trip debated whether to try and find this detention camp or go ahead with this farce of a trial. Well, Trip practically yelled and T'Pol calmly discussed. Vulcan calm or not, I can't imagine how she puts up with his insubordination. Perhaps she sees that he mainly reacts this way when it's his friend, the Captain, on the line. I think she understands humans better than she lets on. (I wish I could say Trip understands her, but I don't think that's the case.)

Meanwhile, Jon and Travis were imprisoned with this other species that...well, I'm not allowed to tell you about them. I know, I haven't had to say that before, but we haven't had to classify anything quite this important before. You'll have to excuse me if I only tell you part of this story.

So, they were interned with members of this species, whom we've met before, but under circumstances I'm not allowed to describe. Turns out this species--let's call them the X, just for brevity's sake--had been living peaceably with the Tandarans until recently, when members of the X started causing trouble. I can't explain that, either. The Tandarans proceeded to round up all of the X and stick them in these camps, "for their protection."

I'll skip the obvious historical parallels, which I know you can figure out for yourself, and simply mention how outraged the Captain was.

I think that's one of the reasons we all adore our Captain: his ability to sustain a belief in the fundamental rights of all beings. We've not had the greatest of introductions to the X, and the representatives we've met so far didn't exactly give us the best impression, yet the Captain was absolutely furious at the treatment of the people he met in this internment camp.

We developed a plan to get the X out of this camp and into spaceships taken from them. (The next time Grat called, we were ready, and Malcolm and I tracked the signal together.) The plan was tricky, and I'm rather proud of my contribution. We needed to jam their transmissions and keep their systems busy while Trip and Malcolm got in and out again. There are several ways to do that--and I won't bore you by describing them--but my favorite is the full frontal attack.

Under the guise of T'Pol being helpful, I sent Colonel Grat our full historical database. The whole thing. Soup to nuts. And the Starfleet Charter. Including all those pesky amendments and appendices. Then, just in case, I threw in the Vulcan database.

I figured if they had a really good comm officer, they could clear things up in 20 minutes or so. But what were the chances some middle-of-nowhere detention center had a good comm officer? I'll bet they're still finding remnants of what I sent in their systems. Damn! I'm good.

And you should have seen T'Pol go, keeping the odious Colonel on the line while I did this. She's definitely learned something from her time among humans. I'm surprised anyone on the bridge could keep a straight face while she politely asked the Colonel if he would like to come to the Enterprise for dinner. She was amazing.

Trip took in a shuttle to provide cover and take out the camps' weapons, while Malcolm transported in to find Jon and Travis. You know, it's Malcolm's job to be in these situations, and I worry about him the whole time, but Trip just didn't need to be there. That's why we have an armory team, after all. Trip just feels responsible for Jon's safety, probably because the Captain saved his life a number of years ago. By this point, you'd think he'd consider the scales balanced, but that's Trip for you.

In any case, thanks to us, there's a small group of the X on the run from the Tandarans, not to mention from their own people. The problem is, now we have to face the question of whether or not we did the right thing.

T'Pol isn't convinced we did, and she only went along with this plan because she was ordered to. But she'd prefer we never interacted with or helped anyone. To an extent, she has a point. If we don't interfere, we can't do the wrong thing. On the other hand, we also can't do the *right* thing.

I really wish I could get your opinion on this, but I can't give you most of the important details. In a very sanitized nutshell, the X we released may head out and get slaughtered by their own people, or they might join up with our enemies and come back to haunt us later.

But could we, in good conscience, just extract our people from prison and leave behind possible innocents? Or is it better to do something than to do nothing? The Captain certainly thinks the latter.

These are difficult issues, and to an extent we're on our own developing answers. No precedent set for us, often out of touch with Starfleet, relying on our own good sense and a set of rules written by Starfleet bureaucrats. I'm not sure how the Captain takes the pressure.

But in this case, I can see how the Captain felt, seeing families imprisoned for nothing more than being of the same species as wrongdoers. I think I would have made the same decision. It seems to me that giving them the freedom to choose, even if we might not like their choice, was the right thing to do.

Oh, Travis came back with an even bigger case of hero worship for the Captain than he had before. It's funny, I'm not that much older than he is, but somehow I feel older--aged before my time. (Just call him Ensign Enthusiasm, 'cause whatever we're doing, he can't wait to get started.) I think he's secretly a little proud of injuries he incurred trying to help the Captain save the X.

Is it a male thing? Do you remember how proud Misha was of the black eye he got defending Jake's honor at that bar? I thought he was going to take out an advertisement. (Which reminds me, did you get the latest picture of their little one? Is he the cutest thing you've ever seen, or what? That curl in the middle of his forehead is just darling.)

I firmly believe our experiences out here just go to show: there's nothing new under the sun. Or the stars. Give my love to Amanda, and take care.

Love,  
Hoshi


	7. After "Vox Sola"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good heavens, I'm almost overwhelmed by this episode. Where to start? How to fit it all in? Thanks for the beta go to Captain Average, the superhero with heart.

Dear Annie,

Wow! Wow! Did I mention wow? I suppose I did, but I'm still stunned by the last day or so. From tragedy to triumph in something like 24 hours. It felt like the day I defended my dissertation. Remember? I went from throwing up my breakfast in the department bathroom, to dinner at the fanciest restaurant in town.

It was sort of like that. It was amazing. But first it was awful.

It all started with a first contact disaster. One for the record books, Trip said, shortest first contact ever. We managed to offend the Kreetassen by--oh, you're going to love this--eating. In public. (Apparently, they were offended by seeing us put food in our mouths. You're the food expert...are there any human cultures that treat eating as private? I can't think of any off-hand. But I digress...)

Anyway, the Kreetassens were so offended that they immediately took off, yelling the entire time. Unfortunately, we didn't find out why they were pissed until later, when they finally deigned to tell Travis about it. My translation showed they were saying, "you eat like you mate" but since we couldn't figure out what that meant, everyone figured the translation must be wrong.

I felt like such a failure. Nobody said they were blaming me, but I could tell they were thinking it. God, I was wondering why I'd ever agreed to take this job. Even T'Pol was making snide comments.

Malcolm and Travis tried to cheer me up and it was very charming, but not very helpful. So, while I was getting more and more depressed, everything went wonky. (Yes, *wonky* again. If you can come up with a better word, I'll use it.)

I kept hearing these noises in the walls and interference in the comm system. I thought I was going crazy.

Then, we got the call. There was a creature holed up in a cargo bay, and it had captured three crewmen, the Captain, and Trip. The minutes before Phlox was able to scan, and assure us they were still alive, were some of the longest of my life.

Malcolm wanted to go back in guns blazing (my god, but he was angry, at me, at T'Pol, at the universe!) but I argued with T'Pol. I knew, I just *knew*, once Phlox said there was a chance of sentience, that the frequency distortions I'd seen were language. And given a chance, we could speak to this thing, rather than shoot at it and take a chance with everyone's lives. But T'Pol and Malcolm just dismissed me like I was a naïve idiot.

I should have started working on those distortions immediately, no matter what they said. But I let my hurt feelings get in the way, and my crewmates suffered longer than they had to because I was determined to wait until T'Pol and Malcolm realized I was right. It'll take me a long while to forgive myself for that.

But after they tried and failed, they turned to me. This thing had a language, but it wasn't like anything I'd seen before. It was more like higher math than anything else, and I had to swallow my pride and ask T'Pol to help. That was one of the hardest things I've ever done, but I just kept thinking of the five of them trapped, hanging, being absorbed by this creature.

At least T'Pol and I were able to clear the air between us. We'd been getting along so well, she'd been so helpful, then recently it was as if I couldn't do anything right. She's been hanging over my shoulder, checking up on me, I figured she didn't trust me anymore. I thought she believed I didn't belong out here. When I confronted her, she said she was holding me to a higher standard, because she believed I could meet that standard.

It warmed my heart, even as I worried that we wouldn't be able to figure out this language in time to save everyone. While T'Pol and I were doing that, Malcolm was building this force field thing that has Trip absolutely ecstatic with the possibilities. (I came to Sickbay to see him when it was all over and found the two of them buried in a stack of padds and speaking engineering--the one language I simply cannot learn.)

The solution to the problem ended up combining all our talents: my linguistic skills, T'Pol's math skills, and Malcolm's force field to keep us safe while we communicated with the alien. I guess we've all learned lessons about trusting each other's judgment, and the importance of teamwork.

So, we stood there behind Malcolm's force field and stared at this thing, this sentient life form, and I was terrified. It was the first time I'd actually *seen* the thing, and it was really scary, like a gigantic white spider web, or cocoons slowly suffocating our crewmates.

I jumped a little when the alien poked at the force field right in front of me, but I just kept reassuring myself that if Malcolm believed it would keep the alien out, I would trust him. And in return, they all trusted me to do my part.

And it worked! I sent the message, the modulated frequencies, to the alien, and it responded. The poor thing just wanted to go home. Can you believe it? I don't think it meant to hurt anyone, and when I figured out how to ask it to let everyone go, it did.

When the creature released them, my feet took me right to where Trip lay on the floor. He was covered in slime and mostly unconscious. I was stunned. I couldn't figure out what to do, so I just sat there like an idiot. When I looked up, I saw T'Pol a few feet away with Jon. They were just looking at each other (although I swear I saw her touching him out of the corner of my eye). I can't explain it, but it was...they just had such a connection at that moment.

The doctor kept all five of the newly-released crew in Sickbay for about two days. (Well, Crewman Kelly stayed a little longer because she was injured a bit worse than the others.) I went to see all of them a few times. I guess I feel a bit proprietary, in a "once you've saved a man's life, you're responsible for him" kind of way. I had to make sure they were okay, since I'd worked so hard to save them.

Jon was about three beats away from ordering Phlox to let him out of Sickbay the first time I visited, but he still looked so tired, you could actually see the lines of exhaustion on his face.

So, after sitting with them for awhile and reporting on the cleanup in the cargo bay, I brought out the big guns. I dropped by T'Pol's quarters and suggested that she go to Sickbay and convince the Captain to rest a little longer. It took a fair amount of weasel-wording and truth-shading, but it worked. Trip told me later that she showed up half an hour after I left, engaged Jon in conversation, and within minutes had him agreeing to stay put and listen to his doctor's orders.

Oh yes, Trip and I are friends again. I've missed him, you know, and I was tired of only speaking to him on work matters. I guess that means things are back to normal, or at least as normal as they get on Earth's first Warp 5 starship.

Love,  
Hoshi


	8. After "Fallen Hero" and "Desert Crossing"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since these episodes are supposed to have occurred in close proximity, I'm assuming that Hoshi didn't have time to write home between them. The fairy tale idea is inspired by Paradox, and I hope she'll forgive me for borrowing it :) Thanks to Captain Average for the beta.

Dear Annie:

Once upon a time there was a young Vulcan...(I know, you weren't expecting fairy tales, but bear with me, someday you and Amanda can tell this one to your kids.) So, once upon a time there was a young Vulcan named T'Pol, who was much beloved by the men of the kingdom, although she favored none but Captain Archer of the good ship Enterprise. One day, T'Pol met a fairy godmother (I mean, a Vulcan diplomat) named V'Lar. T'Pol asked many impudent questions, and V'Lar was very impressed with her. She was so impressed, that when V'Lar visited T'Pol on the Enterprise many years later, she took the time to sit down with one of T'Pol's co-workers and ask how she was doing, as well as answer questions about T'Pol's behavior. And the co-worker was pleased, and it was good.

But T'Pol was--well, it's hard to tell what she was, but if I had to guess I'd say she was unhappy--because it seemed that V'Lar had committed a crime. And T'Pol did argue that Vulcans, especially those as eminent as V'Lar, did not commit crimes. But V'Lar would not say whether she had done anything wrong.

Then a ship arrived and tried to take V'Lar away, but T'Pol and the Captain refused to let her go, because they were stubborn and it was not in their nature to hand over their guests to just any old obnoxious ship that demanded they do so.

And the other ship tried to destroy the Enterprise, but the valiant Sir Malcolm and the Captain disabled them and Enterprise escaped. But because V'Lar did not trust Captain Archer (due to many years of enmity between their people), she would not tell him who was chasing her. So, the Captain determined to return to where V'Lar had come from, in hopes of an explanation.

By the time V'Lar explained that she was innocent of any crime and was in fact trying to expose a heinous band of evildoers, it was too late; the Enterprise was being chased by three of the villainous ships, too many for even the awesome power of the phase cannons. So, Enterprise ran toward the assistance of V'Lar and T'Pol's people, pursued by three determined ships who were able to block attempts to call for help. With the help of V'Lar, the comm officer was able to punch a message through (although the crew did not know for certain at the time that the message had been received).

In the end, the ship was boarded, and only through the trickery of the Captain and the Doctor were the villains confounded long enough for assistance to arrive. And there was much rejoicing, except in Engineering, where Sir Charles and his crew contemplated many long nights of repairing a Warp 5 engine that had been strained severely by actually trying to travel at Warp 5.

And so V'Lar and T'Pol met again, and learned many interesting things, and had many adventures, until V'Lar was returned to her people. And we hope that both T'Pol and V'Lar will live happily ever after.

There, wasn't that a nice story? Of course, the children's version leaves out some of the things I heard the Captain muttering under his breath. Oh, and it leaves out the things Trip said about what people were doing to his poor engines. He took it quite personally that he wasn't able to maintain the speed the Captain needed, not to mention the fact that someone was shooting at us. He reminded me of Mark when our boat broke down on that vacation down the Nile. (I didn't even know Mark *knew* how to curse in that many languages! I guess archaeologists pick up more than we think.)

Of course, I've been thinking about vacations because we were on our way to shore leave on the tropical planet of Risa when Starfleet ordered us to pick up V'Lar. And after we managed to drop V'Lar off with the Vulcans, we tried for shore leave *again*, and *again* we got delayed, this time by a distress call.

Problem is, our second delay was partly a problem of our own making, and it has to do with that species I was calling the X. There's still a lot I can't tell you, but the Captain's decision to help the X came back to bite us--or more accurately Trip and Jon--in the butt.

We answered the distress call of a little ship owned by a guy named Zobral, and once Trip fixed his ship, he invited the Captain and Trip to visit his home and enjoy his hospitality.

Just this once, it would have been nice if Jon had been able to resist making new friends, or listen to his tac officer's advice to take more security. Because, surprise, it turns out Zobral wanted Enterprise to help him win a war against his own government, and he wasn't terribly interested in taking no for an answer.

It's Zobral's fault I had fairy tales on the brain, because he was obviously told the tale of Jonathan Archer the Brave Little Tailor (oops, I mean Starship Captain). You know the story I mean, don't you? The tailor who kills seven flies with one stroke but he lets everyone believe it's seven giants. And then he's sent off by the King to kill giants. Well, the Captain's act of altruism, freeing 80-some of the X from a couple dozen prison guards, has become the act of a mighty warrior freeing thousands of the X from an entire army. "Seven at one stroke!"

In the story, the tailor defeats the giants through trickery and deceit and wins the hand of the princess. Our brave Captain won the heart (or at least the admiration) of T'Pol by choosing to walk away rather than aid the revolution.

Of course, if he'd just said no and walked away, it wouldn't have been so bad. But noooo, the planetary government had to decide that we had taken sides already. T'Pol tried to convince them we'd done nothing of the sort, but they launched an attack on Zobral's camp and threatened to blow up any shuttle we sent to pick up our crew. They even blocked Malcolm's scans of the planet, so we didn't know if they were still alive.

I seem to spend a lot of my time sitting on the bridge waiting to hear the fate of my fellow crewmembers (especially the Captain). I can't decide which is worse, waiting or going on the away missions.

But this incident really made me think about how difficult our task is. I mean, how many planets have a single government for us to contact and how many are a collection of warring nations? How do we decide who to contact, especially for first contact? Obviously, in this case we made the wrong choice and it nearly got Jon and Trip killed. How do we convince other planets of our peaceful intentions? It's going to be a lot harder with the legend of Jonathan Archer the Brave Little Starship Captain being spread by merchants in this sector. The Captain and I are going to have to talk to Starfleet about some of our first contact protocols, and how I go about finding someone in authority to speak to.

In the meantime, our Chief Engineer is in Sickbay recovering. Remember when you took me to visit your friends in Beersheva? I don't remember most of your lecture about dehydration, probably because of the heatstroke I suffered. However, I'm going to drag up whatever I can remember of that lecture and deliver it to Trip next time I can get him alone, because he managed to get himself a severe case of heatstroke and a darn good sunburn.

If it weren't for the Captain refusing to leave him behind...well, that doesn't bear thinking about, so I won't. But I know Trip is never going to set foot on a desert planet again, if he can possibly avoid it. Oh, I almost forgot, he's promised to tell you *all* about what he ate in Zobral's camp, because he says you'll love it. I shudder to think what that means, with his sense of humor, but you should get his note soon because he's stuck in Sickbay not allowed to do any work.

We've once again set a course for tropical Risa, for our well-deserved R&amp;R. Boy, do I need a break; from the stress, from the bridge, from my crewmates. Thanks for getting me those materials from the AAA meetings, maybe once we reach Risa I'll have some time to look at them. I'm sorry to have missed both LSA and AAA, it's the first time in years I haven't been to either. (And sorrier to have missed Susi's annual belly-dancing party and the chance to see you and meet Amanda.)

I feel so isolated out here. All the new languages are wonderful, but it loses something when I can't share them professional colleagues, who can truly appreciate them, rather than simply wait for my translation. I've got wonderful friends, but it's not quite the same.

Good grief, I really *do* need a vacation. Just listen to me! I'll sign off now, Liz Cutler and I are going to ransack our wardrobes for something to wear on Risa.

And hell, how much trouble can the crew get into on a resort planet? Nobody chasing us, nobody shooting at us, it sounds like heaven to me.

Love,  
Hoshi


	9. After "Two Days and Two Nights"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge gigantic thanks to Captain Average for some wonderful suggestions that made this letter *much* better. You're right, Annie *would* expect some details, wouldn't she?

Dear Annie:

In my last letter, I reminded you of our trip down the Nile, but after our shore leave on Risa, it looks like I should have been thinking of that winter break in Jamaica, instead. It took me a long while to forgive you for abandoning me for three days with Mark and Tracy and Misha. I mean, the woman you met was cute, but...well, now I understand.

His name was Ravis.

I think I'm even a little surprised at myself, but you know, it was nice. I'm feeling remarkably guilt-free at having just this once gone for uncomplicated, no-strings-attached sex. No expectations of true love, just a pleasant vacation affair, and even better, an affair with a fellow linguist!

Okay, perhaps I feel just a *little* guilty, because I was teasing Trip and Malcolm in the shuttle on our way down to Risa. But they were acting like such *children*, nudging each other and laughing about going looking for women. It was a little annoying, but I just kept reminding myself that after all the stuff we've been through, I shouldn't begrudge them a bit of childishness. It's not as if either of them would actually do anything bad, other than a bit of ogling. Boys will be boys and all that. (You're right, I don't believe it either, but it sounded good, didn't it?)

I guess I should begin at the beginning. We finally made it to Risa, quite a few days after we set out, and we had a lottery to determine who got two days and two nights of shore leave. Most of the bridge crew won, although I don't think T'Pol even put her name in. I'm surprised Jon didn't call her on that, I could imagine a fascinating argument between the two of them about whether Vulcans need vacations.

So, I rode down in the shuttle with Jon, Trip, Malcolm, and Travis. Oh, and Porthos, of course! Porthos and Jon were headed for a villa on the beach, Trip and Malcolm were looking for nightlife (so to speak), and Travis was planning to go rock-climbing. (Where a boomer learned to enjoy rock-climbing, I can't imagine. Maybe they practice climbing in the cargo hold?)

I set out to practice my language-learning skills without the dratted translator getting in the way. I got to practice Risan, which is really a lovely little language, and not too difficult at all. But while I was sitting in a little café, I met Ravis and I taught him English, while he tried to teach me his language. Given a little more time and a little less distraction, I could do it, I'm sure, but we got sidetracked. And a nice track it was, too!

He really was a perfect gentleman, a nice change from my last several relationships, and it was so romantic. We sat in the café, ate together, walked on the beach, then he showed me his favorite spot in these lovely gardens. Just stunning.

You'd have loved his pick-up line. We were working on his English by giving English names to the fruits we were eating. So, I tasted this sweet-tart green fruit and decided it was very close to a kiwi. He smiled, and when I asked him what was funny, he said that kiwi meant something else in his language, he didn't know the English word for it, but he could show me. Then, he leaned over and kissed me. I nearly choked, but managed to kiss him back.

After dinner, we went back to my room, and I'm blushing, so I think I'll stop there, but I can assure you that we were biologically compatible. At least compatible enough that--as I told him the next morning--I could easily have spent the whole day there! But a few hours later, I was on a shuttle back to Enterprise.

It was so unlike me, but you know, the more I think about it, the more I believe that for all of us, this little vacation was about trying to forget who we are for a little while. Trying to forget all the near-death experiences, the pressure we're under--not just to survive, but to represent Earth to the rest of the universe.

So, we all took different routes, but ended up at the same place. I wanted to get away from the translator, our boomer navigator went rock-climbing (where the only person he was responsible for was himself), two of the most proper gentlemen on the ship went tomcatting, and Jon pretended to be a man of leisure. Travis' plan backfired, I'm afraid, because he managed to injure himself and wound up back in Sickbay with an allergic reaction. Poor thing. Liz tells me he was quite miserable there for awhile.

Even Phlox was taking a vacation of sorts--his annual hibernation. Too bad they had to wake him to tend to Travis. Liz says it was quite bizarre, really. He needed his sleep just as much as we needed our vacation, and she left him tucked in on a biobed after he finally helped Travis.

I'm not sure if I ever told you about them, but Liz really has quite the crush on him. They work together regularly, and I know Phlox is fond of her, but he's completely befuddled by human romance. (Although, we know quite a few human men who are as well. Mark and Emmanuel come to mind.) And we're still not entirely certain if Phlox is even *available*--there's still the matter of the three wives. I'm glad my interspecial romance wasn't long-term, because it seems to me there are much greater difficulties than just those of language.

But back to my point, we were all trying to escape for a little while. I'm really curious about whether everyone else found what they were looking for, but barely anyone seems willing to talk about it. I guess I can't blame them, since I'm not entirely certain how I would describe my two days and two nights either.

I hope they all relaxed, but somehow I don't think so. On our shuttle ride back to Enterprise, you could have cut the tension with a phase pistol. All three of the guys were putting out "don't ask me" vibes so strong I expected the shuttle to explode. And as for why Trip and Malcolm were in robes...I wonder if I actually want to know the answer to that.

That's not jealousy, either, since it's not as if I have any room to talk. You know, if the men on this ship are going to treat me as their little sister, I'm just going to have to find fun where I can!

Doesn't sound like me, does it? I don't know, it's tough, we've been thrown together on this ship, tossed out into the wild black yonder, and expected to face the unknown with courage and honor.

But we're only human, with all the human faults that so irk T'Pol, and every once in a while, they're going to emerge from behind the mask of Starfleet propriety we all wear. And so, we came to Risa, we saw, and I suppose we conquered. Or were conquered! It's hard to tell...

Love,  
Hoshi


	10. During "Shockwave"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And some of you thought I couldn't pull this off...oh, ye of little faith. Ha, but Captain Average believed in me. So there.
> 
> For Jessica, of course, who sent me my virtual hug when I needed it so badly.

Dear Annie:

I'm in such turmoil, I'm not certain how much sense I'm going to make, but right now I just need to get my thoughts in order, and if writing to you is the best way, then so be it.

Somehow, at this moment it's easier to write to you than record a personal log, because this way I can pretend you're sitting here with your arm around my shoulder. I can even hear your voice saying, "Hoshi, babe, it's gonna be okay. I promise. Even if I have to personally beat someone up to make sure of it." I wish there was someone you could beat up for me, but I'm not sure who it would be.

By the time you get this, you'll probably have heard all kinds of things about why we're returning to Earth. I know how rumors and innuendo travel, who better? Don't believe it. Don't believe any of it, because I'm sure it's all lies.

We were invited to visit a mining colony, it sounded fascinating, and I was looking forward to learning about the matriarchal structure everyone was talking about. My impression was that it was the reverse of what we had on Earth, except these men only gained full equality a few years ago. The first shuttle to go down to the colony had Jon, Trip, T'Pol, and Malcolm. Malcolm was piloting, and he was very concerned about the safety protocols we'd been sent, because apparently the mining process creates this gas that can explode in the presence of plasma.

He closed the plasma ducts, I know he did. The word anal does not begin to describe Malcolm, so if he said he closed them, they were closed! As he's been saying over and over, there are redundancies built into the system specifically to be sure of these things. They were closed!

But there was an explosion. God, I can barely even think about it. The colony was wiped out in an instant, 3600 beings, entire families, just gone in a flash. And our shuttle thrown around like a cork floating on the ocean in a hurricane, blown away by the shockwave from the explosion.

I had to search the surface for survivors. I had to look at acre after acre of charred buildings. There was nothing left. Nothing. Just destruction.

And, once again, those long moments until we found out if the shuttle had survived the explosion, until we could get them back on board, get Trip into sickbay. I was ready to explode, between seeing him lying unconscious on a biobed, and the Captain demanding that I find survivors on the colony. I wanted to tell Jon to go to hell, drape myself over Trip, and just sob.

But I didn't, I stood there and did my job and told the Captain over and over what I'd seen. Nothing left. He just couldn't believe it, but he hadn't seen what I'd seen. He hadn't scanned the surface over and over, hoping this time the result would be different.

When Jon gave up beating *that* dead horse, he switched to Malcolm, who was busy beating himself up. They argued over whether there was any way the plasma ducts could have somehow opened, or malfunctioned, until T'Pol intervened and separated them.

Since then, Trip, Malcolm, T'Pol, and I have been analyzing the data backwards and forwards and upside down and sideways, but it just doesn't seem to make sense. There's simply no reason for the explosion to have occurred, yet it happened, and it happened while our shuttle happened to be entering the atmosphere.

The Captain reported what happened to Admiral Forrest, and Starfleet recalled Enterprise. Just like that. After everything we've gone through, after all our discoveries, they cancelled the mission and ordered us home.

It's strange. I didn't intend to be here, I didn't even *want* to be here, they practically had to kidnap me to get me aboard. And yet, I find myself devastated by the thought of the mission cancelled. Maybe it's just watching my shipmates' utter dejection.

The Vulcans are saying perhaps humans aren't ready, that maybe we should wait another few decades before we set out. Yet another example of Vulcans not understanding humanity: to them two decades means working someplace else, then starting over, to us it means letting someone else take our place. Maybe Travis or I might be young enough to start over on another ship, but for Jon and Trip and so many others, this is it. An ignominious return to Earth, the end of their career, perhaps.

It's the end of Jon's dream, the thing he's worked for his entire life, the culmination of his father's work. Trip wanted nothing more than to keep his beloved engines running, especially to help his friend Jon. Travis is depressed, worried that no other job will seem appealing after ten months piloting Enterprise.

I told him that if anyone blames Jon for what happened in my hearing range, they'll get an earful from me, and I meant it! Captain Archer, Jonathan Archer, he's a great man and a great Captain, and I, for one, refuse to let him be blamed for what happened. Even if he seems to be blaming himself.

We followed all the protocols. That shuttle was impeccably maintained. We did nothing wrong. But several thousand beings are dead anyway.

The Captain just called senior staff to a conference. I wonder what else has gone wrong. I guess I'd better send this now, because if we have another crisis, it could be a long time before I get to write again. Tell everyone you know that we did our best to represent Earth to the rest of the universe.

I guess I'll be seeing you soon. It's what I wanted, just not the way I wanted it.

Love,  
Hoshi


	11. After Shockwave, Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, there's a paragraph here that's a tribute to Chris from the Linguistics Database Forum. He and the rest of the LD gang will know it when they see it. Thanks once again to Captain Average, beta extraordinaire and purveyor of the dreaded square brackets.

Dear Annie,

I think you don't realize just how important one person can be, until you think they're gone. Even after everything we'd been through, I don't think this crew (or I) realized how important Captain Archer is--to us, to Starfleet, to humanity.

You've probably heard by now that we've been cleared of the accusation of killing the Paraagan miners. That moment, when we realized what had happened, was so bittersweet. First the joy--the relief that it wasn't our fault; followed by guilt when we realized all those people were still dead. There are still several thousand beings, who had invited us to dinner, that we'll never get to meet.

There wasn't a lot of time to dwell on it, though, because things got hairy pretty fast. The ship was taken over by the bad guys from the X...Did I mention this was all their fault? So much has happened!

They took over the ship, looking for the Captain, who was...gone, and locked us in our quarters. I'm pretty sure they did something awful to T'Pol when they questioned her. She didn't say anything, but she wasn't her usual cool self. And believe me, a little thing like having our ship invaded by hostile aliens isn't even enough to make her sweat, normally.

(Don't tell anyone, but I think she was very worried about the Captain, too.)

Anyway, while the X were doing whatever they were doing to T'Pol, Trip figured out a way to jury-rig our comm panels, so that we could talk to each other from our quarters.

By the time he'd managed to extend his jury-rigging to my quarters on C Deck, T'Pol was back and she'd heard from the Captain. I can't exactly tell you why, but trust me when I say that hearing from him was nothing short of a miracle.

But what he had to say meant that someone had to get us out of our locked quarters. You'd think this was a job for security, right? Maybe engineering? Science officer? No, it was a job for me, not because I'm so smart, but because I'm so small.

Turns out the best plan the most brilliant minds of Starfleet could come up with involved me crawling through these teensy ducts, moving between various people's quarters. (Although, for the record, as far as I can tell there was *plenty* of room in there for someone else. I don't know why they thought I was the only one who could do it.)

I know what you're thinking: claustrophobia. You're remembering the visit to Mammoth Cave, right? You probably figure that crawling through those ducts had to be the worst part of the whole experience. (It *was* pretty horrible--there was some definite hyperventilation going on. I just kept remembering what T'Pol has been teaching me, and that helped a lot.)

But that wasn't quite the worst of it.

No, the worst part was definitely the last bit, when I dropped out of the crawlspace in front of Malcolm's quarters to let him out. You see, as I was lowering myself through a vent plate, the back of my shirt caught on the latch and when I dropped through, I was left shirtless. And I wasn't wearing a bra. (Don't ask. Just don't ask.)

Yes, I had to open Malcolm's door with my hands over my breasts to keep from exposing more than I wanted to.

Stop laughing! It's *not* that funny. What *was* funny was the deer-in-the-headlights look on his face and the way I had to *tell* him to give me a shirt. Nice to know if I ever need to divert all blood flow away from a man's brains, I can just rip my shirt off. Should I be flattered or insulted?

On the bright side, I can be pretty certain he'll never tell anyone. Sometimes it's handy to have a secretive armory officer around. Trip and Travis are great, but they couldn't keep a secret like that for anything.

After my little humiliation, we went on the offensive. Okay, that was a bit of a royal we, because I sat and guarded a couple of prisoners while Malcolm allowed himself to be beaten up for the cause, T'Pol and Trip shot some bad guys, and generally we took back the ship.

As an aside, why does Malcolm keep getting hurt? I know he's our security officer, but still...This may be an unsolved cosmic mystery. At least they don't seem to have done to him whatever they did to T'Pol. Thank heavens for small favors.

To get the X off the ship, Trip rigged the warp core to look like it was about to self-destruct. The X evacuated, towed us away from their ships, and we took off at maximum warp--the X now hotly in pursuit.

We were hoping for two things: to find a nearby Vulcan ship and for Captain Archer to return. We were fairly confident of the first and desperately hoping for the second.

As the X ships drew closer, I could see Trip, on the other side of the bridge, getting more and more worried about his friend.

Just as they were ready to destroy us, they stopped in their tracks. I couldn't see any sign of the Vulcans. It *had* to be the Captain.

The ships drew back, except for one that approached. T'Pol told me to open a channel and we hailed the ship. Trip nearly cried when the Captain's voice came through the comm and I swear even T'Pol looked pleased and relieved.

You've probably heard that Starfleet ordered us to continue our mission. I'm sure you haven't heard why. It all had to do with a most unusual meeting.

The entire bridge crew was present. On the other end of the comm were Admiral Forrest, Ambassador Soval and various human and Vulcan aides. Soval blathered on in his usual fashion about our unworthiness to pilot an aircar, let alone a starship. (Where did they *find* him? What happened to the more reasonable Vulcans you and I met?)

Trip mouthed off in *his* usual fashion and the Captain couldn't decide whether to cheer him on or smack him. The Captain tried to explain that humans need to have a chance to get the hang of space travel, but I suspect that using an animal metaphor when speaking to Vulcans was not the best idea. Maybe someday I'll convince him to tell me what he's going to say *before* he compares humans to gazelles. Ouch.

But you can't deny his sincerity, the passion for exploration, the determination to do the right thing. The Captain is, in many ways, the heart of this ship, this mission, as well as its head. It felt good to have him back where he was meant to be, even if we were about to be ordered back to Earth.

Everything was wrapping up--and not in our favor, even Admiral Forrest sounded like he wanted us home--when T'Pol spoke up.

She *reprimanded* Soval. She chastised him. She did everything but turn him over her knee and spank him. Damn, it was beautiful!

I'm not entirely certain what effect it had, but I know we're not being recalled.

It's so nice to see the lot of us working as a team, even if I *did* have to crawl through the innards of the ship to do my part. And I'm glad we didn't lose any members of the team.

I'm sorry, in a way, that we didn't get back to Earth for a visit. I miss my family and friends and the feeling of walking somewhere well known instead of unknown.

But if Enterprise had returned in ignominy, it would have killed the Captain. So, I guess I'm glad we're on our way out there again. "New life and new civilizations" indeed. Maybe Zephram Cochrane had the right idea.

Gotta go, I promised Doctor Phlox we'd have lunch and I'd tell him all about my part in our recent adventure. In Denobulan, of course.

Love,  
Hoshi


	12. After Carbon Creek

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoshi and I were confused by the whole thing. Can you tell? Sorry it took so long, but RL got in the way. Thanks to Captain Average for his usual speedy beta, he's the original superhero who edits. (And what better thing for a superhero to do?)

Dear Annie,

You probably haven't even gotten my last letter yet, but I just had to write and tell you about how strange things are at the moment. The crew's in a really odd mood since our reprieve by Starfleet, not to mention recovering our Captain. But would you believe that T'Pol was teasing Trip and Jon last night at dinner? Not just the slightly sarcastic wit she shows normally, but if you can believe Trip, she told an elaborate tale just to wind the two of them up.

Trip, Malcolm, Liz, and I were having lunch today, and Trip was lost in thought. He kept shaking his head a little, as if in disbelief, until Malcolm finally was annoyed enough to ask him what was wrong. That was apparently what Trip had been waiting for, because he told us what she said.

I won't go into the full details of the story, because Trip's memory was hazy on a few points, but according to T'Pol, three Vulcans (including her ancestress) crash landed in Carbon Creek, PA in the 1950s.

Uh-huh, I did a double take when he said that part, too.

Supposedly, they were investigating the launch of Sputnik when their ship malfunctioned and they ended up spending several months living in this small town, working odd jobs and interacting with the locals. We were all (including Trip) a bit dubious about their ability to stay undetected in the middle of the Cold War period, and I, for one, would have asked T'Pol when they learned to speak English.

Honestly, the whole story seems weird. My first thought was that *Trip* was teasing us, but honestly, he's a lousy liar. And his ability to lie to *me*, when his body language tells all, is nonexistent. (Kind of like your ability to lie--or lack thereof--actually.) So, if Trip didn't make this up, then either it's true, or *T'Pol* made it up!

It seems to me that if she were inventing a story, she would have made the whole thing more plausible. (For instance, I found the idea that her ancestress invented Velcro a bit odd.) And she wouldn't have claimed that one of the Vulcans stayed on Earth for the rest of his life.

Okay, the Captain's been a bit smug recently, but I can't believe that T'Pol would go to the trouble of rewriting Earth history just to burst his bubble. So, having concluded that would be a non-T'Pol action, does that mean her story is true? That's even more troubling than T'Pol acting uncharacteristically, I think.

Perhaps at some point I'll get up the nerve to ask her about this. In any case, it's been nice to have some downtime after all our excitement. Nice to have this as the biggest mystery to solve.

Engineering has been working overtime to get the ship back in shape and we've all been trying to help out whenever we can. It's one of those times it's frustrating to be a linguist, but I'm afraid I'm of little use in repairing warp engines or EPS grids.

Now that I think about it, I wouldn't put it past T'Pol to set out this story just to get us thinking about something other than the condition of the ship. She often completely misunderstands humans, but she also shows occasional moments of rare insight. This could be one.

Do me a favor, would you? In your copious free time, could you and Tracy do a little research in the Vulcan archives and see what you can find out? Subtly, though, I don't want to get T'Pol in trouble if she wasn't supposed to tell us this. I'll sit down with Trip and get as much detail as he can remember and send it to you. Let me know what you find.

Meanwhile, I promised Liz to help her with her spoken Denobulan tonight, so I'm off to work with her on conjugations. Don't say it, I know exactly what you're thinking and you need to clean up your mind again. It's *filthy* in there. I just hope Amanda appreciates it. Good luck with those grant applications, and let me know if you need a letter of support for NSF.

Love,  
Hoshi


	13. After "Minefield"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Captain Average for taking a look at this for me, and here's hoping he decides to write T'Pol's letters home :)

Dear Annie:

I've got a new goal: make it through a few days without someone (or several someones) ending up in Sickbay. This time it wasn't just Malcolm, but me as well. I'm okay now, although my head still feels like it's got a mariachi band practicing a new number.

Phlox said it was a pretty severe concussion and...oh, I should tell you how I got it, shouldn't I? Right. I can't tell if I'm confused from the concussion or the meds in my system.

Well, we found an uninhabited Minshara class planet and the Captain thought a little light exploration might be just the ticket. It was a great idea--except for the pesky minefield. The first mine we hit blew a big chunk out of the port side of the ship, and I'm incredibly thankful that nobody died. Trip tells me his momma would say it's because "the Lord watches over fools and children."

That's when I got my concussion, getting thrown out of my seat onto the deck.

Seatbelts. That's what we really need around here, seatbelts. You know I've been a big fan of them since the first time Mark drove us anywhere. (Which reminds me, I'm glad he's finally got a tenure-track position. Now maybe they can assign him an assistant to keep him out of trouble.)

In any case, the next thing I remember is waking up in Sickbay, hearing the Captain's voice over the comm asking if I were well enough to go back to the bridge. I was trying to get back to my station when Phlox stopped me. I just lay there and worried about what was going on. Every time a comm beeped or the ship creaked, I wondered if I should be on the bridge trying to translate whatever they needed me for.

After my second attempt to leave, Phlox finally suggested they bring the comm logs down to me so I could work on them. I think he realized I was about to implode. It was probably the most surreal experience of my professional career: sitting on a cot in Sickbay with a handheld UT and a speaker in my ear because Phlox wouldn't even let me sit at a computer. I'm surprised he even let me sit upright! I must have looked half-dead but there were T'Pol and Trip hanging on my every word.

Fortunately, it wasn't an incredibly difficult language and once I made a few more adjustments, the UT was able to kick in and do the rest. In fact, I'm surprised it went so easily. It went so well, I suspect these Romulans must have a language related to one of the others in the UT. Well, it's nice to know I have a little project to keep me busy in my downtime.

But I digress. (And rather severely, I might add. I'm definitely going to have to ask the Doctor what he gave me.)

The one advantage to being half-conscious in Sickbay is that I wasn't on the bridge when we nearly lost Malcolm and the Captain.

I'm getting tired of writing things like that. Maybe I'll stop writing you letters. Once every few weeks just imagine me saying "Trip nearly died today" or "the Captain was kidnapped yesterday." You'll probably be right.

I suppose I shouldn't be making light of this, but I just don't know how to handle the fact that the Captain nearly had to blow up Malcolm along with a mine and a chunk of hull plating. A little piece of me is glad I wasn't on the bridge when Malcolm said the mine had attached itself to the hull through his leg.

I can't imagine what it would feel like to be trapped under a mine. And the Captain had to go up there himself and help Malcolm defuse the damn thing, all because he felt guilty over putting him in danger. No, nobody told me that, but I've known Jon Archer a long time, and some things are easy to guess. Of course, I don't know what I wanted him to do...send Trip? If there's anyone I want to lose less than Malcolm or the Captain, it's Trip. No, nothing has happened between us. Just these drugs loosening my brain a bit. Ignore me, erase that, forget I said it. No relationships for Hoshi. Only casual sex on shore leave.

Back to Malcolm and the Captain defusing a mine. While they were defusing, the Romulans showed up and told us to leave immediately and they weren't especially interested in no for an answer. Apparently, they could tell we were ready for Plan B, which was to detach the hull plating with mine and Malcolm in tow. But you must say one thing for our Captain: *nobody* can outstubborn him, not the Vulcans, not Trip or Malcolm, and certainly not any ol' Romulans.

So, T'Pol stalled long enough for the Captain to come up with an amazingly crazy plan. In fact, it shouldn't have worked at all, and I'm going to have to get someone with a better physics background than mine to figure out why it did. But they detached the hull plating. Then, the Captain used the time between the mine re-arming itself and the actual explosion to cut Malcolm loose, and the two of them jumped off into space with just a couple of shuttlepod doors between them and the explosion. I wonder why they didn't just transport off? And why weren't they crushed? Maybe the EV suits have inertial dampeners and someone just forgot to tell me. Well, as long as they're safe, I suppose I won't quibble.

Hmm, things are getting a little fuzzy again, so it must be time for me to get some rest before Phlox barges into my quarters and give me more drugs. I hope I wasn't too incoherent, but I just had to talk to you. Remember when you broke your arm and they gave you that muscle relaxant? I bet that's what I sound like. Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite.

Did I just say that? I'm telling Phlox in the morning to put in my chart to never give me these meds again.

Love,  
Hoshi


	14. After "Dead Stop"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always for the beta to Captain Average, the superhero who I hope is working on his own set of letters. ::Fingers crossed::

Dear Annie:

He was dead, I saw him. I saw his body. Travis was *dead*, and then he wasn't. Just when I thought I'd faced every bad thing, this had to happen.

I need to calm down.

It's just...I saw Travis' dead body. I told Phlox that I'd seen dead bodies before, early on, when we boarded the Axanar ship...did I ever tell you about that? I can't remember.

But Phlox was right--it's different when it's someone you know.

Remember, I told you we got hit pretty badly by the Romulan mines. Well, it was bad enough that the Captain had me put out a distress call, and he was pretty upset to have to do that. (I had my fingers crossed the Vulcans wouldn't respond, because half the crew would probably have died of the embarrassment.) Instead, we got a message from this species we've never met, telling us about this repair station not that far from us.

The Captain, Trip, and T'Pol went to negotiate with the beings running the station, but there weren't any. There was just a computer, and it assessed our needs and set a price in plasma coolant or something. I think the Captain was pretty spooked by not having a living creature to talk to, because as soon as he'd agreed, he came back to the ship almost immediately.

Everybody else got leave to spend time in the recreational facilities. They had this amazing machine in the center of the tables that would make whatever food or drink you wanted and it just appeared there, sort of a transporter. Trip had that inventor's gleam in his eye, so I wouldn't be surprised if we had one someday.

After our shift on the bridge was over, Travis and I...I'm sorry I need to go blow my nose. Travis and I had dinner. We had a great time. I've been following through on my resolution to get to know the people on the ship better. You know, the resolution I made after Trip and Malcolm nearly died in the shuttle.

And Travis is such a sweetie. We've been comparing boomer and Earth culture and just hanging out. It's kind of nice because he's a little closer to my age and the same rank, so I can be much more myself.

We had dinner, then I went off to have coffee with Liz and Travis went back to the ship.

Next thing I knew, Trip and Malcolm were in my quarters, asking me questions, because Travis was dead. Killed by some sort of shock when he went into an area of the ship still under construction. I couldn't think of any reason he would be there, I just kept remembering him at dinner, nearly choking on a glass of water laughing at a joke I told.

I sat in my quarters for a while, then I had to go to Sickbay. I had to see him, say goodbye in person, before I could believe he was dead.

He was mostly covered, but I could see a few burns, and I nearly lost it. I held it together by talking to the Doctor, telling him about this practical joke Travis played on me. I'd just figured out how to get him back. Trip and I rigged the computer so that when Travis was walking through certain corridors off-shift and alone, the comm system would do all kinds of silly things: wolf-whistle at him, beep, play the Marseilles. It was going to be so funny. We'd planned it just before the mine hit the ship, so we'd put it off until after the repairs were completed.

Just as I was going to start crying, Phlox got this odd look on his face and started muttering to himself. I just stood there in a daze as he ran a test and then called the Captain. I think they might have forgotten I was there, but I wasn't leaving if something was going on. Perhaps I was suffering from a bit of shock, because even after a few repetitions, the words "this isn't Ensign Mayweather" sounded as if they were in an alien language. I felt like I needed the UT, but finally it made sense. Somehow this alien station had created a replica of Travis and taken him away.

(Turns out, by the way, the station faked a comm message from the Captain. That's how it got him.)

From that moment on, the station never had a chance of keeping Travis, because they'd pissed off the crew of the Enterprise. Not a good idea. We threw together a plan to find and retrieve Travis and get away. Unfortunately, there wasn't much I could do, except my usual sit and wait. Malcolm got a little bit of action, but then he was stuck on the bridge with me, while Trip distracted the computer, and the Captain and T'Pol did search and rescue.

I'm a little bit glad I wasn't with them. Apparently, Travis had been hooked up to the central computer, providing processing speed. Since then, I've been having horrible nightmares, where I see Trip-- or you, or Mark, or Phlox--with wires running in and out of them, terrible nightmares where I practically wake up screaming. I've been practicing the meditation T'Pol taught me, but I'm barely hanging on.

Honestly, I'm not sure how much more of this I can take. I was joking in my last letter about constantly losing people, but this just cemented my fears. What if next time someone's really dead, or perhaps even more horrific, what if they're *not* dead and we don't realize it.

I could really use some encouraging words from you, because I'm not sure who else to turn to here. We're all going through the same thing, everyone blaming themselves. If I hadn't gone off to have coffee with Liz, maybe Travis wouldn't have left, and I feel as if somehow I should have noticed the faked comm message. Jon thinks he should have acted on his suspicions, Malcolm can't believe he *wasn't* suspicious, and Trip believes he should have been able to magically repair the ship without going to this station. I think even T'Pol is feeling a bit guilty, although that's harder to tell, but she's been unusually standoffish. Normally, I'd go talk to her about reining in my emotions, but I'm not certain now is a good time.

This would be a good time for a virtual hug. I'm really wishing that we'd turned around and limped back to Jupiter Station, or that I'd been smart enough to never come on this mission at all.

Love,  
Hoshi


	15. After "A Night In Sickbay"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know TPTB feel no need to bridge from the last episode's angst, but I obviously have higher standards :) (BTW, scarification is a real word, ask me if you want to know what it is.) Thanks again for the beta to Captain Average, the superhero who is a wizard with an em dash.

Dear Annie,

Yes, I can certainly see how getting my last few letters all at once would have been a surreal experience, but if you think it was a roller coaster ride *reading* them, you should try living them. I thank you for your good wishes and all the desperately-needed virtual hugs. I will especially treasure the collection of cliches, aphorisms, and other generally mindless inspirational sayings. It must have taken you days to come up with a list that comprehensive and banal, and I appreciate the effort!

I'm glad to hear all is well at home, and that you and Amanda are so happy. I just got a letter from Tracy, too, so it's been a nice day for nostalgia.

You'll be glad to know that things are a bit better out here, as well. I managed to pour all my weepiness out on you before I went to see Travis. He was pretty shaken, but Phlox says he's fine. It's fortunate, I think, that he doesn't remember much of what happened.

(The minute he was up and around, Trip and I sprang our joke on him, and it went great! It took him almost a day to figure out how to shut off the strange comm signals, and we got Malcolm to give us some surveillance pictures of Travis standing in a corridor, looking confused. I'll give one or two of those to him for his birthday.)

In a way, the Captain was more shaken by the whole repair station experience than Travis--probably because he was awake and aware the entire time--and he's been acting strangely ever since.

He's usually very laid-back, but he got so angry when Travis nearly died, and he didn't seem to be getting over it. Then, yesterday, we had this encounter with the Kreetassen. We've met them before--remember when I told you about the aliens who were offended we ate in public?

Well, Trip insisted they had the most compatible plasma injectors around and we went to parley with them. Unfortunately, before we could even start negotiating, they sent us back to the ship because we'd offended them again. Once again, we had no clue why.

So, there I was in decon, rubbing that dratted blue gel all over, with T'Pol (calm), the Captain (frothing), and Porthos (adorable). I have mentioned Porthos, the Captain's dog, before, haven't I? Well, the Captain decided Porthos deserved some shore leave, so he brought him down to the planet with us.

Unfortunately, Porthos picked up some sort of infection on the planet, so the Captain was annoyed with the Kreetassen for not checking Porthos' gene map, the Kreetassen were annoyed at us for some unspecified reason, and the Captain was bugging Phlox for hourly updates, while T'Pol and I dealt with the Kreetassen. Not the most fun late shift I've ever had.

And let me tell you, plasma injector or no, it was a mighty close call on a few occasions whether we were going to tell the Kreetassen to just take their courtesy and shove...Okay, I'm obviously *not* recovered yet.

While the Captain was hovering over Phlox, T'Pol and I were exchanging sharply-worded messages with the Kreetassen. This time, practically everything we did offended them, and I was on my last nerve. Thankfully, I convinced T'Pol that *she* should be the one to tell the Captain that we offended these people when his dog piddled on their sacred trees.

I kid you not. I almost laughed when I they informed us of the grave offense to their dignity.

So, the Kreetassen were sitting around and trying to decide exactly how the Captain should apologize, the Captain was sleeping in Sickbay, and T'Pol was working out in the gym. I called down to her when I got the list of demands, excuse me, requests. I said the Captain wasn't going to believe what they were asking, then to my embarrassment, I discovered *he* was in the gym, too. Someday, I'll learn to keep my mouth shut. Honest.

The strangest part was the ritual they wanted the Captain to go through. I've certainly sat through more than my share of cultural rituals--powwows, bar mitzvahs, scarifications--but this one struck me as a little odd. He defiled a tree (or at least Porthos did) so they had him cut up a tree? It's going to take some study of Kreetassen culture before I can make heads or tails of that. It didn't help that the ritual words were in an ancient form of the dominant language, so the translator simply gave up the ghost, and I didn't have the time to fix it.

I can't imagine where the Captain learned how to use a chainsaw, but I have to say he did a very good job, and he learned the words he had to say very quickly, once he got his mind off Porthos.

That came later. First, around midnight, he and Phlox somehow managed to let Phlox's Pyrithian bat out of the cage, and when I walked in they were trying to kill it or something. You should have *seen* the looks on their faces when the cute little guy landed right on my hand. You'd think the doctor would have learned the trick to taming it by now, but I suppose he's got quite a few other animals to deal with.

I was in Sickbay to let the Captain know that the Kreetassen were getting antsy for a response. They were even offended that we hadn't synchronized our time with their capital city, and when I said I didn't know that was required, the response I got was "It's not a requirement, just a courtesy." Someday, someone is going to teach these people that courtesy is *not* universal. I wish it could have been me, but Trip swears we needed the plasma injector. (I stand by my contention that what the universe needs most is a really good cultural anthropology class, delivered simultaneously to everyone. Perhaps Dr. Chambers explaining cultural relativism?)

In any case, I delivered my message, but the Captain really didn't seem all that interested in apologizing to the Kreetassen. I'm glad to say that somewhere along the line, some combination of T'Pol and Phlox managed to convince him. Porthos recovering, with the aid of some kind of surgery, probably helped as well.

I'm not entirely sure what went on in Sickbay that night (besides letting bats loose) but I know that every time T'Pol spoke to the Captain, she came away actually looking disturbed. I mean, visibly disturbed in some way, which is strange. Maybe she was just unable to block out his turbulent emotions? I don't know and I couldn't quite ask her.

So, the Captain agreed, T'Pol and I coached him intensively in the ritual, and he performed it almost flawlessly. If he hadn't been in such a bad mood lately, we might have surreptitiously snapped a picture of him, in the braids and the temporary tattoo, with the chainsaw in his hand. Sad to say, it was all we could do to not laugh at him. But his mood seems to have evened out, and I'm not sure if it was succeeding in getting the plasma injector, or the shock of almost losing Porthos. Whatever the cause, we have our Captain back, and that's good.

The one thing you can say about everything we're going through, it's certainly creating closer relationships. It seems as if the Captain is getting along with Phlox and T'Pol much better now, and everyone's been making the effort to get know other people.

But the last 24 hours have been quite bizarre--not bad, per se, just odd. Everyone acted as if they were short on sleep, even T'Pol and the Kreetassen, and I had rather the feeling of being caught in a slapstick movie. You know, doors slamming, people yelling, running around in circles. Very odd. Now, I'm in need of sleep, as I'm meeting Trip and Travis for a late meal. I don't remember whether it's breakfast, lunch, or dinner, though. I never *did* like shift-work, did I?

I hope this reaches you before you head off to Norway, because I know how terrible you are about checking your mail when you're in the midst of fieldwork. Make sure that if you don't respond to my mail, at least you respond to Amanda's, hmm? (And explain to me again why you're going to Norway and you don't even eat fish? I wish you could send it to me.) Long-distance, virtual hugs back to you.

Love,  
Hoshi


	16. After "Marauders"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always to the incomparable Captain Average, the superhero who encourages.
> 
> Now and ever for Jessica, who's in the US for a few weeks :) Jess-Jess, I miss you when you're gone!

Dear Annie,

I thought of you the other day, and how we always bemoaned the fact people want things to be black and white. I could practically see you stomping up and down and yelling "If you want the rules to be simple, play tic-tac-toe!"

But you'd be surprised how much I've changed in the last year, I think. I'm a lot more bloodthirsty (the result of seeing too many people hurt), a lot braver (the result of so many close calls, I'm running low on adrenaline), and a lot better shot with an energy weapon (the result of fear and intensive training by Malcolm).

Now, I think I understand why people start to see things in black and white. We needed deuterium, you see, so we set out for this mining colony the Kreetassens suggested, and by the time we got there, Trip was looking pretty peaked about our deuterium levels.

When Trip, T'Pol, and the Captain went down, the people refused to sell to us, but they worked out a deal: we'd get our deuterium if Trip and the engineering staff could fix two of their pumps. I figured we had it in the bag--that man can fix *anything*.

So, there we were, sitting in orbit when, out of nowhere, this Klingon ship appears. Turns out the miners couldn't sell us deuterium because the Klingons would kill them if they didn't get it all.

We found that out later. First, the Captain ordered us to keep Enterprise out of the way of the Klingons, so Travis tucked us neatly on the other side of the planet. Meanwhile, Trip finished up with the pumps, and the colony's doctor came on board to pick up some medical supplies we were trading them.

I went down to the shuttle bay to pick her up and drop her off in Sickbay, and she seemed nice, but skittish. I wondered what was wrong, and Phlox was even more suspicious when he saw what she was taking. Mining may be dangerous, but he said she looked like she was gearing up for war. Or maybe just hostile Klingons.

I swear, Klingons are just the universe's schoolyard bullies. I'm sure they must have some redeeming features, but I'll leave it to you cultural anthros to figure out what they are. Speaking of which, at least the Klingons aren't just humans with bumpy foreheads. Why, I ask you, are so many of the races we meet apparently humans with bumpy foreheads? You'd think evolution on so many different worlds would get a little creative now and then, but apparently not. This is one of the great mysteries of the universe, I think.

So, Trip fixed the pumps, the Klingons said they'd be back in a few days to get their deuterium, and the miners told us to take our booty and go--they'd deal with the Klingons.

Well, Captain Archer didn't take that well. (Sometimes I think the man should have a cape like that Superman guy in the comics Trip loaned me.) Telling him to leave a colony of helpless miners at the mercy of a bunch of bullies...it's like wiggling your finger in front of Phlox's bat and expecting it to sit there nicely. Not likely! The Captain and T'Pol had words in his ready room. I'm not sure what they said, but he went back to the planet to talk to the leader.

(I'd give just about anything to know exactly what they talked about, because they seemed oddly in accord when they came out. Usually after one of these discussions, the Captain looks like he'd rather be kicking her out an airlock than walking next to her.)

And somehow Captain Archer convinced him to let us help drive the Klingons off. I'm not sure how he does it, exactly. Maybe it's the honesty and the earnestness--he cares deeply and somehow, many of the species we encounter seem to figure that out the minute he starts talking.

Then came the difficult task of training these people enough that they could actually defend themselves, and setting up the Malcolm and the Captain's convoluted plan. I'm glad I'm not in tactics, because honestly, I couldn't figure it out.

Travis went off to help T'Pol with martial arts, and for a big guy, he looked pretty frightened at the prospect. I went to help Malcolm with shooting practice in the armory, and that was kind of fun. I don't think he'd gotten around to noticing just how much I've improved recently, so when I took the gun away from that colonist and pointed out exactly what he was doing wrong, Malcolm looked pretty impressed. (It was like the time Tracy wowed our Vulcan instructor so much, he actually blinked when she spoke with her vastly improved accent. Remember that?)

Once they left the ship, I was stuck on the bridge, waiting for the Klingons to appear, so we could signal everyone on the colony below. They came, they saw, we conquered. I still don't understand why they were scared off so easily, but I suppose we weren't dealing with the cream of the Klingon High Council, so that might have something to do with it. In any case, another day, another people freed from tyranny.

You know, just another boring day out in deep space.

It worries me a bit that we're going to go around and get ourselves mixed up in every struggle we encounter. Aha! I hear you say. You're right, I guess it's not as black and white as I was saying at the beginning of this letter. You know me so well.

It would have hurt me almost as badly as the Captain, to leave these people to be bullied and injured--but what if we'd failed? What if we'd gotten them killed? What if we'd gotten ourselves killed? Couldn't we have sent a message to their home planet? Asked for assistance from the Vulcans?

Surely even the Vulcans couldn't look down on us for being unable to stay in one place and guard a colony, since that's not our mission.

But it wasn't my decision to make, and the Captain turned out to be correct, and the Klingons turned tail and fled. I just hope they don't come back after we're gone.

Sometimes I wish I'd stayed on Earth, happily teaching Vulcan to the masses, where my most difficult dilemma would be whether to spend a month in Brazil or Argentina.

Love,  
Hoshi


	17. After "The Seventh"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Captain Average, for smoothing out some ragged prose in this letter and for the proxemics suggestion (which he made last week, but I used to better effect this week).

Dear Annie:

I've decided that it's finally time for me to learn to take my relaxation when I can. No, we didn't get shoreleave again, sad to say, but we got a few days of a break while Sub-commander T'Pol was off on some sort of mission for the Vulcans. I still don't know what, and I doubt I ever will, because neither she nor the Captain told us what they were doing.

(Thanks for sending me the journals and newsletters, by the way. They arrived just in time for our little break, so I'm almost caught up. I was especially amused to see that picture of Amani receiving his award. Have you ever seen him grin that hard? Good for him!)

In any case, while I was reading "Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Strategy Use in Egyptian Arabic and Vulcan Refusals," T'Pol took the Captain with her on this mission, along with Travis as a pilot. After the Enterprise stopped at this uninhabited planet, they took cold weather gear, and the three of them, for all intents and purposes, disappeared.

Malcolm was so frustrated by the whole situation, he was actually speechless. I can't imagine what it must be like to be the security officer and have your two top officers take off and refuse to tell you where they're going. I would hate to have been the equipment in the gym, because I suspect that's where he took out his frustrations.

I couldn't decide whether to feel bad for Trip. I'll admit that it was frustrating not to know why we were here--and the man *is* a bigger gossip than I am--but he did have a bit too much fun with being acting captain. Well, for a little while.

Of course, when the Vulcans showed up, he got his comeuppance for teasing me, because we couldn't admit that Captain Archer was off with T'Pol. I stalled them and called Trip in the Captain's mess, where he was eating with Malcolm and Phlox. I wouldn't have even done that, except that the Vulcan captain really wanted to speak with Captain Archer. Well, Trip said he'd get back to me.

So, there I was, with impatient Vulcans banging on my figurative door and he wanted to get back to me? I knew he'd give in eventually and talk to them, but the harebrained scheme he came up with made me feel like we were back in college...y'know, he reminds me of you sometimes.

I should have seen it coming, but I didn't: He pretended to be Captain Archer! He had me combing the files, querying everything and everyone we could to ensure this Vulcan had never met our captain, then Trip just stood there and baldly lied. I can only thank our good luck this Vulcan apparently doesn't know anything about accents or dialects of human languages, or we'd have been found out in an instant. The more stress he's under, the more southern Trip sounds.

Of course, Trip would never have done such a thing if the Vulcans hadn't been *so* insistent that they had a message from Admiral Forrest, and if the captain hadn't been *so* insistent that we not let the Vulcans know he'd gone with T'Pol.

Someday we're all going to get tangled up in our lies, and it's going to be messy--but that day wasn't today.

Honestly, I'm not sure Trip got through command school with all his uncertainty. Maybe he just needs some more practice, and I should urge the Captain to leave him in charge more often. Somehow, though, I suspect Trip might not appreciate that.

Wait, I forgot to tell you the best part! Imagine the scene: Trip is standing there lying to the Vulcans, convinced he's going to be found out any moment and court-martialed or something. Finally, the Vulcan captain pulls out Admiral Forrest's vitally important message:

"Cal beat Stanford seven to three."

I thought Trip was going to fall over, but he mumbled something to the effect of "I'll tell him," thus almost giving away the whole shooting match, but fumbled his way to a recovery. I cut off the Vulcan captain before he could ask any questions, and Trip collapsed into a chair.

Why I didn't just laugh at him there and then, I'll never know. It does go to show that Admiral Forrest obviously has a better sense of humor than we'd previously given him credit for. That could be handy at some point, I suppose.

It was especially interesting to see Captain Archer and T'Pol's proxemics before and after this secret mission. They've been in much greater accord in recent weeks, much less glaring and such, standing closer together, you know, things like that. But now...well, obviously something happened, something that brought them closer together. I don't see any signs of the residual dislike of Vulcans when he talks to T'Pol, it's almost as if he's forgotten she's Vulcan.

(It would have been interesting to watch his reaction to the Vulcan captain, but for some reason they took off without speaking to us again. I suppose that's good, though, or poor Trip would have had to impersonate the Captain again.)

In any case, it will be interesting to see how long this new accord lasts, if they've truly come to some sort of understanding, or if it's just temporary.

I haven't given up on my mission to figure out why T'Pol can stand being around humans so much longer than other Vulcans. (Which reminds me that I'm still curious about that story she told Trip and the Captain about her ancestor, how are you doing on that research?) And if Captain Archer can come to work happily with a Vulcan--with his personal history--maybe our two races can come to an understanding.

Love,  
Hoshi


	18. After "Singularity"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies if I got the name of Hoshi's dish wrong, it's just a guess. The cake is real, though. My husband made it for me once, and I've never forgotten it. My gratitude, as ever, to Captain Average, the superhero who likes hockey.

Dear Annie:

Do our obsessions define us in some weird way? I've always rather thought so, but if it's true, I'm not certain what to say about the past day or so, not sure what our unconscious minds have said about us.

It all had to do with radiation, T'Pol tells me, and a strange confluence of events involving a black hole, a trinary star system, and human physiology. (Doesn't that sound like the beginning to a really stupid Starfleet joke? "A black hole, a trinary star system, and an ensign walk into a bar...")

This strange kind of radiation--which T'Pol started describing but stopped when my eyes visibly glazed over--had a strange effect on the human prefrontal cortex, as well as its equivalent in Denobulans. All of us, except T'Pol, became absolutely obsessed by something, to the exclusion of everything else.

I know what you're thinking, that I became obsessed with some translation, some quirk of the universal translator, or some odd feature of a language. (Heck, you think I'm obsessed under *normal* circumstances!) But that wasn't it at all.

No, I became obsessed with cooking the perfect pot of udon. (The same dish my mom made the first time you came to visit, even after we explained the whole vegetarian thing. I'll never forget the look on your face when she said, "But it hasn't got any meat, just fish.")

You might be wondering why I was cooking in the first place. Well, Chef got sick, and since we were on our way to visit a stellar feature not noted for its language abilities, there wasn't a great deal for me to do. I thought cooking would give me a nice break, just like when I used to cook those elaborate dinners for everyone in order to avoid working on my dissertation. (I've never managed to exactly duplicate that three-layer Drambuie-soaked chocolate cake. Tracy keeps asking, though.)

What happened to everyone else? Let's see...the Captain spent all his time writing and rewriting the preface to a biography of his father, while poor Liz got it into her head that she needed to delete all of her personal letters and logs. (We're still trying to recover them.)

Trip designed the perfect Captain's chair, although he ended up scrapping his idea when the radiation wore off, and Phlox tells me he tried to redesign Travis' brain. I'm glad T'Pol got there in time to stop him.

Malcolm became obsessed with new security protocols, which I'm happy to say worked despite their odd cause, and Travis tells me he couldn't rid himself of the idea that he was going to lose his position on Enterprise for dereliction of duty. Oh, and though I haven't talked to him, I hear that Rostov became obsessed with cleaning his quarters, and ended up coming to blows with his roommate over it.

The question, I suppose, is whether these obsessions say something deep about our personalities, or did we simply become obsessed with whatever we happened to be doing when the radiation affected us? For instance, at any given moment, Malcolm is most likely to be working on our security protocols (although I would imagine he sleeps occasionally) and Trip is most likely to be tinkering with something. (It might have been worse: What if Trip had become obsessed with fixing the warp core and he'd somehow damaged it?)

I certainly used to use cooking as an escape, something you know I inherited from my mother and grandmother, so I suppose I could see how it could become an obsession. I don't generally think of Michael Rostov as the neatest person, but there may be something in his psyche I don't know about. Something to ponder in my spare time, I suppose.

Our salvation was the difference between human and Vulcan physiology, but I'll admit there's a small part of me that wonders what T'Pol might be obsessed by, given the push we received. Would it be her work, or is there some less logical passion roaming in her brain? Inquiring minds want to know.

But T'Pol wasn't affected, and when the rest of us finally collapsed over our obsessions, she discovered that the fastest route out of the radiation--the only one fast enough to save our lives--required two people to navigate through. Now, Travis was sedated, so he couldn't pilot, but I did wonder why she didn't pick the beta or gamma shift pilot.

Of course, Captain Archer is a damn good pilot, but I do think it's interesting that her first instinct was to get *his* help. More things to ponder in my spare time.

I'm happy to say that everyone has recovered well, just a few bumps and bruises. I'd love to write more, but Chef made me promise I'd come help him clean up the galley. I'm afraid I made a bit of a mess. Oh, and I've got to remember to apologize to Crewman Cunningham for my rude behavior.

Unfortunately, the poor guy made the mistake of trying to get between me and the perfect pot of udon.

Love,  
Hoshi


	19. After "Vanishing Point"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A tip of the hat to Sarah Gerber, whose post on the Linguistics Database made some of these points before I'd even started writing, and I stole from her shamelessly. Of course, the tremendous beta was by Captain Average, the superhero who punctuates.
> 
> For Jess-Jess, as always, but especially because she was just here visiting and I miss her already. Just for her, there's a true story tucked in here.

Dear Annie:

Shoot me, please.

I'm not kidding. Please shoot me before I have to face my crewmates again--now that they've probably all heard about how Ensign Sato went nuts and thought aliens were trying to take over the ship.

I thought I was embarrassed after I screamed like a twelve-year-old on the Axanar ship, but that was *nothing* compared to how I feel now! Then, I could excuse myself based on inexperience, but I don't think that will wash a year later.

Now, I'm just a wimp.

I know by now you're glaring at the screen and muttering imprecations at me, so I'll stop babbling and try to explain what happened.

Trip and I were down on this abandoned planet doing a quick survey when a huge storm blew up. For some reason, we couldn't take the shuttle, something to do with the kind of storm. (I didn't pretend to understand the explanation.) So, what did they do? They used the transporter.

Well, as you could guess, I wasn't too thrilled with the whole idea of being broken down into my component molecules and reassembled on the other side, so I tried to talk the Captain out of it. No such luck.

Trip agreed to go first, and he materialized back on Enterprise. Then it was my turn, and all hell broke loose.

I won't burden you with the whole story, but I thought I was coming apart at the seams...cell walls...whatever. Murphy's Law hit with a vengeance, and suddenly I couldn't decipher a simple language, people were completely ignoring me, it was awful. Then I started to become see-through, finally completely disappeared, and everyone thought I was dead, although I could still see them. While I was trying to communicate with the crew, I saw these aliens rigging some kind of a bomb. In the end, I jumped onto an alien transporting device in a desperate attempt to follow them.

As you've undoubtedly guessed already, it was all a dream. I was trapped for eight seconds in the transporter's pattern buffer while Trip and Malcolm struggled to rematerialize me.

No! *Not* a dream, a *nightmare*, like every terrible nightmare you've ever had rolled into one. I stumbled off the transporter platform yelling about aliens and bombs and who-knows-what. Trip and Malcolm thought I was absolutely insane! It took a little while for me to realize that what I'd experienced hadn't actually happened, and that just a few seconds before, I'd been down on that planet with Trip.

I went to Sickbay to get checked out by Dr. Phlox, who assured me that it was perfectly normal, but somehow that didn't help (most likely because in my dream he assured me of the same thing). Then, Jon came by to try and make me feel better--which was nice of him--and that helped a bit, but not completely.

You know how it is when you wake up from a really bad nightmare, and it takes a long while to shake it? Even when you understand that none of it was real, you still feel shaky and upset, sort of twitchy, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I still feel like that, and I really don't want to go to sleep. I suppose that's why I'm writing to you instead...

I sure as heck don't need Starfleet Psychiatric to interpret the meaning of my dream: my subconscious is not noted for its subtlety.

One section featured performance anxiety: what if I can't decipher a language when people's lives are at stake? (And it was Trip and Travis--my two best friends onboard--whose lives I couldn't save.) My brain even threw in the Captain kicking me off the bridge for incompetence, just for that extra little touch of fun. Am I still that worried about my abilities?

Quite a bit of my dream had to do with feelings of invisibility, being ignored, not taken seriously. Gee, I've *never* felt like that, have I? (All sarcasm intentional, of course. And there's no need for you to comment on how you're reminded of the whole Eric situation. I've seen the connection.)

There was also some family anxiety in there, when I desperately tried to get Jon's attention while he was calling my Dad to tell him I was dead. Dad acted very oddly, irritable and unemotional, you'd barely have recognized him. This is one of the few parts of the dream that didn't have an obvious explanation. Perhaps I feel as if I'm so far away from my family that we're no longer emotionally connected? (No comments on Jon being a substitute Dad, because that couldn't be further from the truth. Jon is...let's just say he's nothing like my father and leave it at that.)

I even managed to fit in a piece of one of my usual nightmares about being late, very much like the ones I used to have in college about missing exams. (I still blush when I remember the time we really *did* almost miss our sociology exam because we both overslept. I'll never forget the sound of the door slamming open and Rachel yelling at the top of her lungs for us to wake up.)

And for that final oh-so-subtle touch, there was lots of Trip. Lots and lots and lots of Trip. I would imagine, partially, it's because he's the last person I talked to before I went into that infernal machine. *But*, whatever the reason, he was all over the dream/nightmare. First, he tried to reassure me that the transporter hadn't hurt me; then I saw him mourning my loss in a corridor. I still shiver at the memory of that. I didn't tell anyone about that part, it's just a bit too private.

Jon and I talked a little bit about the end of my dream--when he came to see me in Sickbay--and he thinks it's important that at the end I jumped onto the alien transporter in order to save the ship. I suppose he's right, but I wish I really believed that my decisions in the dream world necessarily translate to this world.

I mean, it's nice that he thinks I'm braver than I was a year ago, and that means a great deal to me, but does that really help? If I'd failed in my dream, I still would have woken up, but if I'd failed in speaking to the Axanar, the ship might have been destroyed. Do you see? There's no comparison.

This nightmare shows that I'm worried that I haven't really grown in the past year: deep down I'm still the nervous ensign who didn't want to go on away missions. Am I really valued by my crewmates? What if I let everyone down? How would people react if I died?

Honestly, the symbolism was so obvious, I'm a little embarrassed by the whole thing. Okay, I'm a *lot* embarrassed, but I feel better now that I've told you about it. But I know you, and I know that at this moment you're tapping your fingers on the desk, your eyes are narrowed, and you desperately want to say...

"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

Love,  
Hoshi


	20. After "Precious Cargo"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, I say I want to avoid shippiness, but c'mon...with an episode like this, how could I resist? Thanks to Taryn for the read-through.
> 
> For my hard-working--and currently off-line--beta, Captain Average, the superhero who rocks. Come back to us soon; my punctuation needs you!

Dear Annie,

At least if Trip was going to have a one-night stand, he picked a beautiful woman. I don't know exactly why that makes it better, but it does. (I know it had the exact opposite effect when Eric slept with the oh-so-statuesque Nomali, but that was different. How? I don't know. It just was.)

I'm trying fairly hard not be jealous of Trip, considering my own behavior on Risa. How well I'm succeeding is strictly a matter of opinion, mind you.

Granted, I don't know for certain he had sex with this Kaitaama person, but from the look on his face...I'd say the evidence is mounting. (So to speak. Good grief, have you ever noticed how *anything* can be a double entendre in the wrong hands? What am I saying? Of course you have, and you're the one who taught me--so this is all your fault.)

More information, less whining, you say?

Okay, we stopped to answer a distress call from an alien cargo ship, which claimed they needed help with repairs. Trip went over to help fix a stasis pod they said carried a passenger. (More on that later.) Well, he realized pretty quickly that no matter how good his intuitive understanding of machinery, the project would go faster with a translation.

I brought over a UT programmed to translate the written language and found him staring into the pod. And she was certainly gorgeous, mostly human in appearance, with just a few spots on the sides of her head. Trip barely even looked at me, just said thanks.

"It's not polite to stare," I said, trying not to laugh at him as I left. (Of course, if I'd known he was going to sleep with her, I might not have been laughing.)

The Captain offered to give these aliens a lift to where they were supposed to drop off Kaitaama, but they said no; Malcolm found that rather suspicious when we discussed it on the bridge, I'll give him that. But the Captain shrugged it off and went to have dinner with them.

It wasn't long before the Captain was calling Malcolm to go check out what was going on, because Trip wasn't answering his comm, then the alien ship broke loose from the docking clamps...with Trip on board.

Turns out--did you not see this coming?--the stasis pod didn't hold a passenger, but a prisoner, on her way to be ransomed by her people. And when she woke up and Trip let her out of the pod, the alien captain panicked and took off.

We set out in pursuit, but the alien ship played a dirty trick, dropping these particles that clogged our engines. (I could practically *hear* Malcolm filing that trick away for later use.)

While we were limping our way along with no warp engine, Trip was taking a ride. (See? Everything I say comes out...twisted. Definitely all your fault.)

As Trip told the story, he and Kaitaama wormed their way through access tubes, jumped in an escape pod, and landed on an island, where they waited for rescue.

But the smirk on his face says they did something else while they were waiting, and somehow I don't think he was found in his underwear just because it was hot on the planet. Boy, Trip works pretty fast, and under difficult circumstances, too. You've almost got to admire that.

Of course, while he was, shall we say, otherwise engaged, (ha!) we were frantically worried about his safety. Engineering worked their behinds off to purge those intakes, the Captain nearly wore a hole in the deck pacing, and Malcolm swore to take out every bit of their engines next time we caught them. I even witnessed T'Pol sounding mildly concerned for his safety.

She pointed out that the remaining alien needed Trip to repair the stasis pod, but once that was done...ominous silence.

That's when the Captain decided to really lean on the alien we had--oh, did I mention one of the aliens got left behind? I suppose I was too caught up in describing Trip's sex life. (Say the word obsessed and we can have a little talk about one lovely lady whose name was...let's see, Nasreen, wasn't it? Mm-hmm, I thought you'd see reason.)

In any case, the Captain, in great desperation, hatched an odd, but effective, plan. On the theory that good cop/bad cop might be new to this sector, he and T'Pol threatened the alien we had in custody until he gave us the warp signature for his ship.

I would have given almost anything to see the ruse being carried out. I don't know exactly how it worked, but I saw T'Pol go by in full Vulcan robes, and Malcolm says the Captain was playing good cop. Vulcan bad cop--now *there's* something you don't get to see every day. I shudder to think what kind of threats they must have come up with--those two can be pretty dangerous when they're working together.

Whatever they threatened him with, it worked. He spit out the warp signature, and we took off at top speed for the location we pinpointed, expecting to find Trip's lifeless body somewhere along the way.

The ship was floating empty when we found it, no detectable life at all, which gave us a bit of a jolt, but then T'Pol found biosigns on a nearby planet (the only one with an atmosphere). That was when I caught a faint signal, possibly a homing beacon, but it cut off before I could pin it down precisely.

The Captain, Malcolm, and a security team went down, while the rest of us waited. I nearly bit Travis' head off for speculating about what they might find. (Must remember to go apologize to him later. I'm sure he understood, but still...)

Malcolm took great relish in describing the scene as they found it--especially Trip's state of partial undress--and from his description, I'd say I'm not the only one who thinks Trip was a busy busy boy.

Well, it was pretty anticlimactic, but there you go. Trip came back safe and sound, Kaitaama was returned to her people, and the villains were turned over to the proper authorities. (And boy, was *that* a diplomatic and linguistic mess: Kaitaama's people screaming about what happened to her, the villains' government screaming about our treatment of their people, and the Captain trying to do first contact in the middle of everything.)

But I've just woken up from the first full night's sleep in a few days, and things are looking brighter already. I hope all went well in Norway, and you now know everything there is to know about Norwegian eating habits. I'm still holding out for a package of smoked fish, you know.

Love,  
Hoshi


	21. After "The Catwalk"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Captain Average for the beta :)

Dear Annie,

It's one of those conundrums you hope they answered when they were building the ship, but it turns out they didn't. And let me tell you, the results weren't a pretty sight. The conundrum?

What happens if everyone takes a shower at the same time?

Why, you might reasonably ask, were we all taking showers at the same time? Because we'd all been trapped and showerless for eight days, of course.

Okay, I'll stop teasing you before you break something. Enterprise encountered a class 5 neutronic storm. No, I don't know what that is any more than you do, but it was going to bombard the ship with deadly isotopes. *That*, I understand.

The crew took shelter on the catwalk--the maintenance shafts running the length of each warp nacelle--because it's the best-shielded part of the ship. And it turns out that if the warp reactor is running, it gets pretty darn hot in there. As in, unbearably, unlivably hot. So, we had to shut everything down. We dragged in supplies, and Trip managed to transfer navigation in and rig up a toilet. But that's about it.

We were there for eight days.

Oh yeah, there were also these aliens that were immune to the isotopes, that tried to take the ship, but that kind of thing happens all the time, so I don't really have anything new to report there.

You know, there was some yelling, some shooting, and the Captain nearly had to destroy the ship. The usual stuff.

But compared to the stress of all of us crammed into a small space for eight days, a few aliens with guns are hardly a challenge.

As I told the Captain, this experience should have taken care of any lingering claustrophobia. We'll find out the next time I need to use an EV suit, I suppose.

There were some amusing moments, like Chef practically burning Malcolm for complaining about meatloaf, and T'Pol's attempts at "hanging out" with the crew. I would lay odds that the Captain kicked her into it, because I find it hard to believe she would eat with us or watch a movie without pressure from above.

In the end, I think she rather enjoyed it, though. We're really corrupting the poor woman--I'll bet her own people will hate her when she returns.

There were certainly also some tense moments: Malcolm and Trip arguing over whether there was time to install a shower on the catwalk, a few debates over food, and the incident with Ensign Laurie's perfume. (Don't ask, just don't ask.)

But somehow we survived.

Now that the whole thing is over and we've all been released back to our quarters, I suppose I can see the Captain's point, that the crew has come closer together from this experience. (Perhaps a little closer than we wanted...)

I know we've only got 80-some people (and one dog) on board, but as humans tend to do, we've created little cliques, and it was good to be forced to spend time with people we might otherwise only have known to nod to.

We played a lot of cards (and I greatly improved my abilities at poker, you'll be happy to know), did a lot of puzzles, and watched a lot of movies. (Although I'm going to make a point of finding out who picked them. Just because men are in the majority on the ship doesn't mean we shouldn't get the occasional movie women would enjoy.)

Ensign Tanner and I spent an enjoyable few hours discussing Brazil, as it turns out he spent a few summers there some years ago. Lt. Hess and I had a great time trashing the men on the ship just scandalously. What else? I discovered that Crewman Kelly has absolutely terrible taste in literature. And she's promised to loan me the next three books in the series.

I even got to give some language lessons. A few people wanted to learn a little bit of Vulcan, which I thought was encouraging, and one crewman asked to learn some Spanish, because he's got a crush on Lt. Rivera. Very sweet, I think.

As I said, we survived, and I think we are a bit more of a team than we were eight days ago. But as a substitute couldn't we just have done some of those annoying team-building exercises they always foisted upon us in the dorms? I actually found myself wishing the Captain had just made us sit in a circle and recite our names and favorite music instead.

By the way, the picture of the smoked salmon? Not funny. Not funny at all. And I hear you laughing, don't think I don't. I'll get my revenge somehow. After all, I've been practicing on Travis.

Love,  
Hoshi


	22. After "Dawn"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite WDCA scheming to keep me from seeing this episode, I succeeded. Thanks as always for the beta to Captain Average, the superhero who liked this episode more than I did.

Dear Annie,

Would you believe that Trip is a budding linguist?

No, I didn't think so, and neither do I...although I have to admit he didn't do half bad with our latest first contact.

But Trip's going to be lucky if the Captain ever lets him off the ship again, let alone by himself. See, he went off to test some modifications to shuttlepod one, and managed to get shot down by a pilot patrolling the area. (I've decided he's sort of the Enterprise's version of Mark: voted most likely to get himself in trouble by simply standing around and looking cute.)

In any case, we lost track of them just after detecting the other ship, and both Trip and the other pilot ended up crashing on one of the 62 moons of this gas giant. As far as Malcolm and I could tell, they just disappeared.

There's no way the Captain would leave it at that, of course, so we started searching. It wasn't long before we ran into the ship looking for the guy who shot Trip, and unsurprisingly, they (the Arkonians, that is) weren't all that friendly.

Meanwhile, Trip was on this moon (which thankfully had an atmosphere) with an alien and no UT. Apparently it took Commander Genius quite a while to figure out that yelling wasn't going to work and switch to gestures, but once he began that, he did pretty well.

Maybe he really *was* listening to my lectures on first contact and language? It only *looked* like he was napping.

It might have gone faster, I suppose, if the alien had been a little more interested in communicating and a little less interested in stealing the transceiver Trip was trying to repair. Quite a bit of time was wasted in beating the crap out of each other before they got around to talking--thus proving conclusively that the alien was also male. (In other circumstances, I might not make such assumptions about whether this species has the same genders as humans, but this is practically proof, don't you think?)

While they were beating each other senseless, Enterprise and the Arkonians were searching the 62 moons for them, getting more worried with every one eliminated. The Arkonian captain didn't help with his pronouncement that if his pilot had shot at Trip, Trip was already dead.

T'Pol made it even worse with her thermal scan showing that many of the moons dropped to minus 5 degrees at night and up to 170 degrees during the day. After getting him off that desert planet alive, we weren't really interested in letting him broil now.

So, we searched while Trip and the alien learned a few words in each other's language and tried to share water--except the other guy (Zho'Kaan) didn't drink water. I'm sending you the chemical composition of his drink separately, you'll find it fascinating, I'm sure.

They managed--or Trip managed--to get the transceiver working and I was so incredibly relieved to get his message. Then it was just a matter of tracking his signal back to him.

When we got there, the Captain was all ready to transport Trip and Zho'Kaan up to the ship--since the moon's atmosphere somehow interfered with shuttle engines--when Phlox objected. Just to make things more complicated, the dehydration Zho'Kaan was suffering meant that his cells were degrading (don't ask, that's what Phlox said, and I trust him), thus a transport would kill him.

Brave, impetuous Commander Tucker refused to leave Zho'Kaan alone, insisting that an Arkonion shuttle could be modified to survive the atmosphere and pick them up. I couldn't decide if I wanted to kiss him or kill him when he finally made it back, just barely surviving yet another sunburn and case of heatstroke. Not to mention the fact he was bruised, beaten, and generally battered, thanks to apparent testosterone poisoning.

I refuse to even get into the issue of the ability of Zho'Kaan's saliva to heal one of Trip's wounds, because I find that a bit disturbing, and the science of it even more improbable. I leave it to Phlox to figure out how and why it works cross-species.

As I'm sure you can tell from my writing, I'm terribly short on sleep, so much so that I can't even remember how many shifts I just worked through to find Trip. He looks terrible, but he's alive. He's alive. Now I'm going to bed. Love to everyone and remember to send me your paper when it appears in Medical Anthropology.

Love,  
Hoshi


	23. After "Stigma"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was difficult to tell how much Hoshi knew, and when she knew it...to coin a phrase. So, this is a compromise. Thanks to ponygirl, allie, and Josephine for giving me their opinions. And thanks, as always, to Captain Average, the superhero who rocks :)

Dear Annie:

I can't remember the last time we had this much excitement without someone either shooting at us or threatening to shoot at us. (And isn't *that* a depressing commentary on my life.)

Unfortunately, much of the excitement involved T'Pol nearly being recalled to Vulcan. *Again*. That's getting to be nearly as commonplace as Trip and some alien babe. Speaking of which...but I'm getting ahead of myself.

There's a great deal I don't know about what's been happening, and I don't want to pry into T'Pol's personal life. Certainly a comm officer often has to do that whether she wants to or not, so I prefer to avoid it when I can. But it all comes down to the fact that I'm worried about her.

The Captain is nearly frantic, which tells me that whatever has happened, it's serious. And since all of this excitement has taken place at a conference of the Interspecies Medical Exchange, presumably it's over something medical.

Granted, that may be an unwarranted assumption. Perhaps T'Pol is fighting with the Vulcan Science Directorate over what brand of dilithium to use in the warp engines...

But I don't really think so. We came to this conference so Phlox could attend, and suddenly I received a stiff note from the conference organizers that he was no longer welcome as an attendee, and three Vulcan doctors descended on us to meet with T'Pol and Phlox.

I didn't find out about her being recalled until the Captain asked me to find a loophole, a way to delay the recall legally. "Tie 'em up with their own regulations" is how he put it. And I'm proud to say I did.

Turns out they had to give T'Pol a hearing before they yanked her back, so she and the Captain set out to convince these doctors to let her stay on Enterprise. The nosy part of me wishes I could have been a fly on the wall, but I suppose it doesn't really matter why they let her stay, just that she's staying.

As I said, I'm assuming it's something medical. And if she wants to stay here, then presumably she believes Phlox will be able to help her just as well as her own people. I'm sure he can, he's an amazing doctor.

Then there's Trip and the latest alien babe, except that this babe is a) Denobulan and b) married to Phlox. Yes, boys and girls, this time Trip was chased by our doctor's wife. How *does* he do it?

Phlox's wife Feezal came aboard to help install a neutron microscope in sickbay. I'm not exactly certain why it was necessary to have the chief engineer installing a piece of fairly standard equipment like that, but I suppose Trip just hates having new toys aboard unless he gets to play with them.

(And no, I didn't mean Feezal. Really.)

But Feezal apparently shares with *every other alien female in the entire universe* an attraction to our Mr. Tucker. According to what he, rather shamefacedly, told me at lunch, she was quite blatant in her regard. I think he would have preferred to not tell me, but I'd been pestering him to explain an odd meal he and I had the other day, and you know just how persistent I can be when something bothers me.

We were eating, and everything was perfectly normal until Feezal showed up. Trip was trying to convince me to stay aboard to watch the movie with him, but it was some horror film. Yuck. Do you remember what happened the time you made me watch that slasher movie? I thought Mark was going to faint when I jumped into his lap in fear.

In any case, from Trip's reaction, I honestly thought he'd slept with Feezal. (I suppose I owe him an apology, although he certainly looked embarrassed enough for that to be the case.) Apparently he was blushing because she was fondling his leg with her foot, and I can't really blame him for that, can I?

Although I do wonder why all the alien females seem to glom on to him. (I used "glom" the other day, and then I had to find it in the dictionary to prove to Liz it was a word. Ha! The linguist wins again.)

What other excitement did we have? Well, much of the crew got to take at least a brief shoreleave on the planet. I didn't have a chance to learn too much of the language, but enough that I was able to attend and enjoy a live theatrical performance. It reminded me a bit of pantomime, in the sense of humor that it showed.

In other news, Travis, our little boomer daredevil, managed...wait for it...to injure himself. I'm beginning to think he needs a keeper on shoreleave. This time, it was playing some kind of sport involving live animals, of all things. From his description it sounded like a greased pig contest, quite honestly, but Travis insists it was great fun.

The animals apparently got a bit overenthusiastic, however, and Travis ended up in sickbay. He was lucky the injury wasn't all that serious, and even luckier that Phlox's intended lecture on safety was cut short by all the other events. Travis swears he'll be more careful next time, but somehow I find that unlikely. Is there some reason I'm surrounded by men dedicated to getting themselves hurt? Is this some death wish that Starfleet imparts to the male cadets?

And on that cheerful note, I'm almost due for my next shift, so I should finish up this letter and get ready. I hope all is well on Earth.

Love,  
Hoshi


	24. After "Cease Fire"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written on a plane somewhere over the Midwest, with my husband grumbling on one side, and a restless stranger jabbing his elbow into my other side. Typed up during my lunch break on my first day back at work, after three hours of sleep.
> 
> Thanks for the beta to Captain Average, the superhero who is welcome to gush over my writing any time he pleases ::grin::.

Dear Annie:

Final score? Humans: 1, Vulcans and Andorians: 0. Go humans!

I'm so excited I can barely sit still long enough to tell you about what we've accomplished. Okay, it was scary and there was some shooting, but everyone survived and if we haven't actually created peace out of chaos, we've at least slowed the rate of entropy around here.

It all started with a call from Admiral Forrest, which I put through to the captain's ready room. When he came out about 15 minutes later, he looked like he'd just been told that the moon really *was* made of green cheese, and the Klingons had taken a slice--you know, surprised, disbelieving, and unsure how to react.

I was really worried for a moment, but it didn't seem like whatever had happened was really bad...just strange. And when the captain gathered his wits enough to call a meeting of the senior staff, we were all pretty shell shocked as well. You see, the Vulcans and Andorians were fighting over this tiny planet, practically ready to go to war, and the Vulcans wanted *our* assistance to mediate.

Malcolm's jaw dropped, Trip said hell had frozen over, Travis and I stared at each other. And T'Pol?

She raised an eyebrow. You have to love that Vulcan calm.

Seriously, even *she* looked a bit shaken, although you'd have to know her pretty well to see it. She made the captain repeat himself, which for her is the rough equivalent of screaming aloud in hysteria and running around in circles. After he'd repeated the admiral's message, she seemed more willing to accept that this wasn't some odd example of human humor.

It took us three days to get to this planet and I took the time to read up a bit on what was going on. Apparently, the Vulcans and Andorians have been fighting over this barely habitable rock with little more than an atmosphere for over a century. The Andorians got there first, but the Vulcans say it's so close to their home world, the Andorians must be using it as a military outpost.

They've been yelling back and forth for 100 years with an occasional break to shoot at each other, and for some reason they wanted us there. I was a little concerned they'd decided to shoot at *us* instead, but it was also exciting to go play diplomat.

We arrived and--in grand military tradition--both sides made us wait. Finally, the Vulcans deigned to come by for a visit. Lucky us, our good buddy Soval was there representing the Vulcans.

Did my sarcasm come through clearly enough?

It turns out, the Vulcans hadn't asked for us and, true to form, didn't much want us there (thus restoring my worldview). It was the Andorians.

I don't think I ever told you about our experiences with the Andorians, did I? Well, suffice it to say, they've been ambivalent at best, but apparently the captain impressed the Andorian commander, Shran, so much that he insisted on our presence to oversee and mediate.

I wasn't in the meeting, but I can't imagine Soval was too thrilled by this, and since I know he has a particular knack for annoying Captain Archer, I was a little concerned. But this time, the captain came out of the meeting grimly determined. And Trip said he was quite astoundingly calm and cool during Soval's rudeness. Another point for out side, I'd say.

The captain waited until the last possible minute to tell Malcolm that no security was joining the mission to meet with Shran--only the captain and T'Pol. Malcolm was...furious. Incandescent with fury. Not that he said anything, he really didn't have to. His body was nearly shaking with fury and it didn't help that the captain looked faintly amused.

Oh, I wasn't there, they were in the captain's ready room, but I would have heard any shouting, and I saw them when they came out. It took half an hour for Malcolm to calm down enough to talk, he just went to this station and savagely punched buttons. Scanning the area, I suppose. Even Trip, in command for the duration, left him alone.

The first words out of his mouth, as we waited, were, "They're going to go unarmed."

"They've got phase pistols," Trip said, looking alarmed.

"But he plans to leave them in the shuttle."

"And the Sub-commander agreed?" Travis asked.

"Unbelievably, she did," Malcolm said. "And there I thought she had more sense than that."

They went, they met with Shran, and he demanded to meet with Soval. I still can't believe it worked, but the captain convinced Soval to go down and meet. (Did I mention the Andorian ships on their way to bring reinforcements and heightened tensions?) Once again, they went with no security and plans to leave the weaponry in the shuttle.

Worst of all, as far as I was concerned, once they made it into atmosphere, Andorian jamming kept us out of contact. Do you know how nervous it makes a comm officer to be unable to comm someone? I know I was reluctant to take this job in the first place, but you know me, once I'm committed, that's it.

So, we were all waiting and worrying, when yet another arrogant Vulcan commed us with the bad news that they saw weapon fire and the shuttle going down in an emergency landing. Malcolm and I immediately started searching for any way to track their signal, their biosigns, anything.

Meanwhile, Trip and the Vulcans got into a pissing contest over the rescue efforts and the Vulcan implied we were so inferior, we'd *never* find our crew without them. You know how I react to that kind of attitude. Unbelievably, Malcolm and I did it, through some cross-referencing and filtering and some serious jury-rigging. I was able to isolate something I was 90% sure was human. There seemed to be two other biosigns, so we had some hope for T'Pol and Soval as well.

Unfortunately, just as I was making some progress in pinpointing their location, the Andorian ships arrived and moved into a face-off with the Vulcans. It looked like there was going to be shooting, and Trip got this pissed-off look.

I could tell he was angry and frustrated and worried. Which, oddly, seemed to make him a better captain. He had Travis move Enterprise between the Vulcans and Andorians.

Yup, right in between. Mind you, this was more symbolic than anything, because they could always have shot around us, but symbolism can be useful.

The two sets of ships hailed us and Trip (who looked sick and tired of the whole situation) said he didn't care to take sides and he was going to shoot *anyone* who moved toward the planet. Malcolm got to arm the phase cannons, and the look of glee on his face was a sight to behold. (I think it made up for his earlier frustration with the captain!)

We hung out in space, deadlocked, and I waited for someone else to get tired of waiting and shoot at us, when suddenly both sets of ships started moving toward the planet.

Trip really didn't want to shoot anyone, but Malcolm was getting ready to, when the captain hailed us, saying the ships had everyone's permission to approach. This prompted palpable relief on the bridge.

There was a lot of toing and froing, as Captain Archer helped sort things out, and I got the story of what happened on the planet from Trip. To make a long story short, they were shot down by Shran's second-in-command, who has no desire for peace with the Vulcans.

They chased each other around, Soval was snide, there was shooting, and Shran and Soval finally met and managed to not kill each other, thanks to T'Pol and the captain.

Negotiations and such will continue, but we've made a contribution. It may be the mission I'm proudest of, although I'm glad it's over.

Yes, I'm glad there's no more immediate danger of shooting, but also...did I mention that the last treaty took eight years to work out? It's 1200 pages long. (Reminds me of Reshma's dissertation, actually.) I'm glad we don't have to stick around, if that's normal.

I was going to close by saying that, for once, nobody got shot, but that's not technically true--Soval was shot in the general disarray. But at least for once it wasn't one of our crew that ended up in sickbay, so I'll count that as a plus.

Hmm, my life is certainly different than I expected, isn't it? Remember when we were going to travel around together, a freelance anthropologist and linguist? I don't think those fantasies ever included Andorians, slime monsters, or treaty negotiations--at least not that I can recall. But I find myself oddly satisfied with my life as it is.

If only people would stop shooting at us. Love to everyone and I hope you two have fun on your vacation. Soak up some sun and drink a few cocktails for me.

Love,  
Hoshi


	25. After "Future Tense"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Starsearcher, saragirl, jyorakku, court, and marais for their assistance and opinions on the contents of this letter. Much appreciated :) And thanks, as always, to Captain Average, the superhero who encourages.

Dear Annie:

I'm not sure how much sense this letter is going to make. (Yes, I know. You're smirking. "And how much sense do you make the rest of the time, dear?") In all seriousness, there are things I can't tell you, but I don't know what'll be left once those are removed.

I can't tell you some of the biggest secrets--you know how bad you are at keeping secrets. After all, there was the surprise party incident, and the thing with the cheesecake, and well, you know.

So, you may get the problem without the solution, I'm afraid. Well, let's get on with it and see what develops, as Dr. D used to say.

It all started with a derelict ship floating dead in space. Now, we haven't exactly had much luck with random floating ships, so you might think we'd be a bit wary, but you'd be wrong. We dumped it in launch bay two and Malcolm and the captain rushed right down. Even Mr. Cautious (Lieutenant Cautious, I suppose) barely took the time to scan it for weapons, he was so excited.

I was stuck on the bridge, of course, but from what they tell me (and from the scanning T'Pol was doing from the bridge) Malcolm just used a phase pistol to crack it open and they jumped in without doing any analyses of the air, the metal...If I didn't know better, I'd think they'd lost their minds.

But they climbed around in this tiny little ship like boys with a new toy, and while Trip and Malcolm were investigating, they found--and you'll never believe this--that the ship was bigger inside than outside. I didn't believe it either, originally. T'Pol frankly thought they were kidding. (I think she's encountered too many stupid jokes recently, as she seems a bit quick to assume humor.)

After discovering the rather grisly body of the ship's lone occupant, Trip and Malcolm found a bit of technology in the ship emitting a weak signal, which they brought it out with them. But before they could learn anything, we were attacked by, well, by the X. Remember, the species I couldn't tell you much about? Yeah, them.

They claimed prior salvage rights to this ship, but the captain wasn't buying that. Besides, any ship with technology to make it bigger inside than out is a ship we want to hang on to.

Then, the X started shooting and some managed to infiltrate the ship, knocking out Trip and nearly venting the launch bay with him in it. (I'm glad I didn't realize that until later.) Malcolm was pretty pissed that he failed to take out their engines before they vanished.

The captain immediately had me request help from the Vulcans. It was about time they got their arrogant selves out here and backed us up against the X with bigger and better weapons. Unfortunately, the nearest ship was still a few days away. That made for some anxious sailing, I can assure you.

Then came the next surprise: Phlox's genetic analysis of the body found in our derelict ship. It was human, and a few other things besides.

The captain thought maybe the body was Zephram Cochrane, the only human we could think of who might have made it out this far. Maybe we'd solved one of history's great puzzles--and I wish that were true, but it wasn't him.

While we were running around worrying about this, we were also making tracks to meet up with the Vulcans. Trip took to hanging over his engines, worrying every time they pinged, the captain paced, and Malcolm kept his precious cannons ready to fire at any instant. He drove the armory crew absolutely wild, and engineering was considering staging a mutiny at one point.

Then, a new species showed up out of nowhere and demanded we turn over the derelict ship. This time, it was someone called the Tholians, whom T'Pol said the Vulcans consider rather xenophobic. (You'll be pleased to know I successfully resisted the urge to say "Pot. Kettle. Black.")

The worst part was my utter inability to get a good read on the Tholian language. We got a lot of clicking and beeping, along with some translated words, and I can't figure out what's wrong. I've been working on it in my spare time, but I haven't gotten anywhere.

Let's see, after the Tholians insulted the captain (or at least that's what I'm assuming it was), they threatened to shoot us and we ran away.

Now, do you remember way back at the beginning I said that Trip and Malcolm removed something from the derelict ship, something that was emitting a weak signal? Well, Trip had been working on it all along, and he developed a theory that it might be some kind of transmitter.

Meanwhile, the X showed up again, just a few minutes away from our rendezvous with the Vulcans. They blasted away at our launch bay, nearly breaking through.

As we got closer and closer to our rendezvous, the Vulcan ship suddenly came into view...disabled. Not destroyed, but completely unable to help us.

Arrowing away from it, Tholian ships engaged the X and suddenly Enterprise was the bone in a tug-of-war between two mighty powerful dogs. There wasn't much we could do, but we engaged in a series of last-ditch efforts while the Tholians were destroying all the X's ships. The captain thought there was a chance that the derelict's transmitter might just be an emergency beacon, and he ordered Trip to get it working.

So, while we were being shot at, Trip was trying to fix up this bit of unfamiliar technology, Malcolm and Captain Archer booby-trapped the derelict ship in case anyone got it, and general chaos reigned.

The Tholians broke into the launch bay and put a tractor beam on the derelict ship; unfortunately, they were also able to somehow remotely defuse the booby-trap. Just as they were about to get away with it, Trip succeeded in his task: The transmitter sent its unknown message to unknown people.

Within moments, the ship, the body, and the distress signal all disappeared. Just vanished. We've got a pretty good idea of where they've gone, but sad to say, that comes under the heading of things I can't tell you about. Maybe someday.

With no further ado, explanation, or apology, the Tholians took off--leaving us gasping in relief and ready to help the Vulcans put their ship back together again.

And what have we learned today, children? Have we learned to not go around picking up random derelict ships? Perhaps we've learned that poking around in said ships can be hazardous to our health? Maybe we've learned a little lesson about not depending on the Vulcans to save our asses?

I doubt it.

Love,  
Hoshi


	26. After "Canamar"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to ponygirl for allowing me to use her suggestion from the Linguistics Database Forum. And Em Gomez is borrowed with permission from Jessica and Chrysa. Em's fans should know she'll probably be making some return appearances...
> 
> My eternal and continuing thanks to Captain Average, the superhero who edits.

Dear Annie:

You know, I never get used to crewmembers nearly dying. I thought maybe it might get easier, but it doesn't.

Especially when they have a knack for nearly getting killed while on routine missions. It's getting to the point where any time someone leaves the ship, I start mentally preparing their eulogy. That can't *possibly* be healthy.

This time, it was Trip and the captain, off on a quick visit to the Enolian homeworld. We went to pick them up at their rendezvous, but all we found was Shuttlepod One, floating end over end--with no biosigns.

I won't make you suffer as long as we did: they'd been snatched off their ship by a prison transport that thought they were smugglers.

D'you know, I don't think we ever found out what it was they were supposed to be smuggling? How odd.

In any case, the government official that T'Pol got hold of, wasn't going to be very helpful, but nobody does stubborn like a Vulcan. Eventually, he found the transport that was taking Trip and the captain to a prison called Canamar. We practically had to kidnap him to get him to go with us to meet the transport--to make sure there were no other misunderstandings, you know.

Of course, things couldn't *possibly* go easily. One of the criminals, a particularly nasty Enolian named Kuroda, managed to get loose and take over the transport. Well...actually he had a Nausicaan accomplice.

Our Enolian official informed us his government wasn't going to take any chances on Kuroda getting out again: if we didn't find the transport first, there was a good chance the Enolians would blow it to pieces.

Typical. Shoot first--don't bother with the questions. Damn the innocent men, full speed ahead!

So, we tracked that transport. But we still might not have succeeded in saving the two men, if not for a coded message from the captain. It was pretty sketchy, considering that he had to code it in Morse code, but since he was trying to pilot a ship using controls he couldn't read, I was pretty impressed he managed even that.

And it gave us enough information to track down the ship that was supposed to pick up Kuroda and his Nausicaan buddy.

Here's where it got tricky. We had to take the ship without doing any serious damage, and find out what was going on. Malcolm and his team did a great job! There was a little bit of damage where they essentially broke in through an airlock, but engineering patched over it so Kuroda wouldn't notice.

So, we had a shuttle with a couple of Enolian criminals, and no idea what to do next. Now, these criminals knew we weren't the Enolian government, so there wasn't much chance of using that angle. Instead, Malcolm came up with the devious idea of playing master criminal. (Since the option of beating the dickens out of them was ruled out.)

T'Pol okayed the plan, but decided she wasn't up to the acting involved--although she did an amazing job of playing judge, jury, and executioner when Trip and that chickie were lost. So, Malcolm drafted me and two of his armory crew (Crewman Orsini and Lt. Emmanuelle Gomez, who can both look very menacing) to play the part of henchpeople.

In one of the most terrifying improvisations of my life (and yes, I know you're responsible for all my theatre experience), we convinced the two Enolians that we were bigger and badder criminals than Kuroda. We told them that they and Kuroda could join *our* organization or die. When they agreed, they told Malcolm how the rendezvous was arranged.

At which point we dumped them in the brig. Malcolm and a couple of burly armory officers hopped into their ship, with Travis as pilot. Travis was thrilled to see some action, although I rather wish he'd agreed to stay out of the way of weapons. No, he didn't get hurt, I just worry, because he's not security trained.

Anyway, they met up with the prison transport, Kuroda opened the door to his accomplices, and Malcolm and gang entered, weapons presumably blazing.

I'm told there was some scuffling before Kuroda and the Nausicaan were knocked out, the prisoners were taken off the transport and...oh, I forgot to tell you that Kuroda was planning to kill everyone else, so the transport was in a decaying orbit.

The captain, of course, refused to leave until everyone was off. Malcolm swears he only turned his back for a second, but the supposedly unconscious Kuroda slammed the door shut, trapping the captain with him. Malcolm blames himself, but honestly, I think Captain Archer is completely capable of nearly getting himself killed without anyone else's help.

More scuffling ensued, while Travis fought to keep the two ships docked, and Malcolm considered blowing the door open. The captain finally got the door open and Malcolm says he was *still* trying to save Kuroda. Malcolm had to drag him off bodily.

Once again, all's well that ends well! The boys returned, tired, hungry, and a little bit worse for wear and I think we all came out of this experience a little more wary of varied cultural conceptions of justice.

Even I, with all my years of anthropology classes, find it hard to believe that the Enolians can so cavalierly dispense with any kind of trial before imprisonment. It's always interesting when we find our own cultural prejudices, isn't it? I hadn't realized how fond I am of the old "innocent until proven guilty" formulation.

Time for me to finish up and send this letter, as I'm having dinner with Em Gomez. I haven't really spent much time with her, but after working closely on the interrogation, I found I really liked her. She's tough, no-nonsense, and is prone to saying whatever's on her mind, and to hell with the consequences. In fact, she reminds me a lot of you. We're planning a good bitch session this evening.

Hey, aren't you and Amanda coming up on your first anniversary? Maybe by the time you get this, it'll be past already, but just in case, happy anniversary!

Love,  
Hoshi


	27. After "The Crossing"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This would have been done sooner if I hadn't had to make an emergency trip to New Jersey for the weekend. Thanks to Captain Average for the beta, and for an explanation that Hoshi attributes to Trip.

Dear Annie,

I've missed you and Earth all along, but lately it's been even worse--ever since I got a little taste of home. The captain brought us all back, but I'll admit that there's a little piece of me that wishes he hadn't. I know, I know, you're tapping your fingers on the desk, waiting for me to explain.

This alien ship showed up at Warp 6 and our weapons and engines just...stopped. Then, it gobbled up Enterprise, like whatsisname and the whale.

There were no life signs and no transceiver, so while I tried my best to contact whoever or whatever was piloting the ship, there didn't seem to be anything to contact. There were just these glowy things, flitting like butterflies, invisible to our sensors.

Captain Archer, Trip and Malcolm went out to see what they could see, and one of these glowy things went *into* Trip. (You'd think eventually we'd stop sending him on away missions, since everything apparently happens to him...and while we're on the subject, why'd the captain take him when the engines so obviously needed to be fixed, anyway?)

When the being came out again, a few moments later, Trip swore he'd been back in Florida, with some ex-girlfriend. Phlox couldn't find anything wrong, so Trip went back to working on the engines. I kept trying to communicate, and T'Pol tried to find these glowy things on our sensors.

Oh, and she also kept up-to-date on how the crew was reacting our being stuck. I hadn't really noticed what a good network she's been building up. She's really learning how to read humans and what's important to us, and in return, people are learning how to talk to her, and how to explain things to her. It's all very neat to see.

While Trip was down in engineering, the glowy thing--which Malcolm dubbed a "wisp"--took him over again. Rostov figured it out when Trip called him "sir," and he called the captain immediately.

T'Pol, Malcolm, and the captain, tracked "Trip" to the mess hall, where the wisp was eating pretty much everything in sight. Liz tells me their conversation was really weird, because it sounded like Trip, but not quite. I'm glad I never met the wisp in Trip's body. It would have...bothered me. Although not as much as the one in Malcolm...but I'm getting ahead of myself again.

The wisp told Captain Archer that his people were subspace explorers--noncorporeal beings who were just curious about us. After that, it left again, and Trip described riding along with Hopalong Cassidy and spending time with his father.

Just when we thought we were clear, one of the wisps tried to take over Phlox, but failed. Then it got Malcolm.

Apparently, he ogled Deb Strauss in the hallway and was incredibly forward and rude to Melissa Chamberlain in the turbolift. She told me later it sounded like the universe's worst pick-up lines: Me man, you woman, wanna get it on?

But that's not the strangest part! Then it went to T'Pol's quarters and told her to take off her clothes. T'Pol wouldn't say much more than that, but I'm pretty sure it didn't hurt her. She looked more annoyed than disturbed. (Yes, I *am* learning how to read Vulcans. Or at least one particular Vulcan.)

While all of this was going on, I was hearing all kinds of strange things from around the ship. Hess trying to kiss Josephson, Em was found *dancing*, and Rostov got taken over while working on the engines. The captain had me send security teams to pick up anyone acting oddly--although Travis made the excellent point that we didn't know if those security teams were themselves, but what else could we do?

We started locking people in their quarters and Phlox figured out how to determine who was possessed by a wisp. Very handy, that. (Although we never did figure out why the wisps didn't just take us all over at once.)

Then, Travis was being chased by one of these things, and he ran up into the catwalk...and it stopped. Apparently, the osmium shielding of the catwalk (where we hid from that storm) somehow stops them from floating through.

So, the captain had everyone evacuating to the catwalk again, and shifted bridge control there. And that's pretty much the last thing I remember, because I was taken over.

Those of us who were possessed have been trying to figure out a way to describe it to others, and there hasn't been much agreement, except that it wasn't scary at all. Whatever they were doing with our bodies, we were nowhere nearby.

I can't even remember all the places I was, but it was...it was amazing and it was wonderful. Yes, intellectually I resent having my body stolen and the idea the wisps were going to take our ship, but I can't regret the experience.

I was home first, I remember that, sipping tea with my mother--that English stuff she used to sneak in to annoy my father when he wanted green tea. No arguments, no demands, just a relaxed tea ceremony.

Then, I was there for a meeting between Humans and Vulcans--before everything went bad, back when they were studying the two languages and communicating. It was incredibly exciting.

I saw San Francisco, too: my apartment with everyone there for a party, eating, drinking, laughing. I walked in the park with you and Mark and Tracy, and we sat in the Japanese tea garden, just like we used to do.

Next thing I knew, I awoke in sickbay, next to a somewhat bruised and battered Trip--who didn't look much happier to find himself here. It's as if we were given the times and places that made us happiest or interested us the most. At least, that seems to be true for everyone I've talked to.

Em told me about whitewater rafting down the best river she ever found, and making fresh tortillas with her grandmother. Rostov blushed a little and mumbled something about gardening with his father. Liz got an incredibly nostalgic look on her face and described traveling the Galapagos Islands with Charles Darwin.

Malcolm changed the subject. Three times. T'Pol came as close to glaring as I've ever seen when I asked her, so I had to give up on her as well.

Oh, I suppose I haven't told you the end of the story, have I?

When we last saw our brave heroes, they'd retreated to the catwalk, leaving the possessed crew locked in their quarters, and Phlox--immune to the wisps--running around the ship.

Apparently, the wisp possessing me called Phlox claiming my leg was broken, then tried to knock him out when he came to fix it. Fortunately, our intrepid doctor is no babe in the woods, and he came armed with a phase pistol and a hypospray, the latter of which he used to knock me out.

Meanwhile, T'Pol convinced Captain Archer to let her try a daring plan: leave the catwalk and allow a wisp to try and possess her, hoping she could learn something from it. To my mind, it's a mark of T'Pol's and the captain's desperation that they went ahead with this plan, because honestly it's the most harebrained and illogical plan we've ever hatched. Stupider even than the time we tricked those Klingons by moving a village six meters to the east. What made T'Pol so sure she could resist, just because she's a Vulcan? And just because the wisps could apparently pull out some of our memories, doesn't mean the flow goes both ways.

The really astounding thing, though, is that the plan worked! T'Pol was able to push out the wisp through force of will. Or sheer Vulcan *stubbornness*. Take your pick.

Well, it turns out these "explorers" were actually riding in a deteriorating ship and couldn't survive in airless space. Why would noncorporeal travelers in subspace have this problem? I don't know, I'm just the comm officer. Trip suggested that the incredible cold of space could slow down the wisp's energy signature, thus killing them. Too bad he'll never be able to test his theory.

In any case, they planned to take us all over and hijack our ship, until Phlox, T'Pol, and the captain hatched a clever plan to use gas to knock us all out--basically choking us so the wisps would leave. The plan was nearly derailed when it turned out that one of the wisps had stowed away in Trip's body and he overheard the plan. He knocked over poor Travis on his way to stop Phlox from releasing the gas.

Phlox looks rather pleased with himself these days, and I suppose he should be: it's not often the doctor sees this much action!

Captain Archer isn't looking quite so pleased. In fact, Trip says he's not eating very well and he's been sighted pacing the halls late at night. (Hey, T'Pol's not the only one with a network of informants.) I would imagine the captain's feeling guilty because he blew up the wisps' ship on the way out, and I can't blame him--for the guilt or the explosions. They were planning to take over any compatible minds they encountered, and yet, I can't help wishing we could have come up with a way to save them as well as ourselves. Some way to learn about how they did it, some way to go back to the places they sent us.

All of which leaves us in a strange position: one-third of the crew disoriented and saddened by our sudden removal from happy places. We're like recovering addicts, willing to do almost anything to get our drug.

Phlox thinks that as certain brain chemicals return to their normal levels we'll all start to feel better, but it's not all that pleasant while we wait. Which reminds me, I'm due in sickbay in a few minutes for a last checkup, so I'll sign off now.

Send me a letter soon, something long and chatty, as I'm feeling homesick. I miss you.

Love,  
Hoshi


	28. After "Judgment"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always for the beta go to Captain Average, the freelance superhero, and also a big thank you to the LD Forum folks for encouragement. I may have tipped the scales on the ol' sarcasm-o-meter this time...

Dear Annie,

In theory, I suppose I should probably be fascinated to learn so much about the penal system of an alien race--except for the part where they were going to execute Captain Archer.

We should be used to encounters with alien laws that don't work in our favor. From Porthos peeing on a sacred tree, to Trip and the captain getting hijacked onto a prison ship, this entire mission has just been chock full of legal fun.

Well, this time we got in trouble for answering a distress call. No, wait, that's happened before too, hasn't it? Good grief, I think we're repeating ourselves. At least we could come up with new and interesting ways to nearly get ourselves killed, don't you think?

But we answered a distress call and found the most pathetic bunch of refugees you've ever seen--you'd have cried. They were stranded in a ship that was providing them oxygen for life support, and not much more, stuck too far away from their destination.

Apparently their colony was annexed by the Klingon Empire, which stayed just long enough to strip any available resources and then disappear. The colonists were in danger of starvation and other such exciting things, so they set out for the nearest habitable planet, but their ship couldn't handle the journey...at least half the colonists died on the way.

Naturally, we took them in--over Malcolm's security concerns, of course. While Trip and his crew were climbing all over their poor ship, trying to see if it could be fixed, the Klingons showed up. Lucky us.

The captain of the Klingon ship--a thoroughly unpleasant specimen named Duras--demanded we turn over the refugees, whom he called rebels, for trial and probable execution.

Naturally, there wasn't a chance in hell of our turning them over, so after some exchanges of testosterone, we got down to the shooting and running. It didn't look good, but the captain came up with a plan to run into the rings of a nearby planet and ignite the plasma to cloud their sensors.

It worked, and gave us enough time to drop the refugees off safely, but not enough time for anyone to get here to back us up when the Klingons showed up again. We're just lucky that it wasn't Duras or someone of his ilk that came for us, or I wouldn't be alive to tell you this story.

But since they obviously had the drop on us, we had to let them take Captain Archer; they said they were going to put him on trial for conspiring against the Klingon Empire. T'Pol nearly had to forcibly restrain Trip from beating the crap out of the Klingons that came to take him, and Malcolm looked like he was going to implode.

What with the damage to the ship and other such details, it took some time before we made it to Qo'nos where the captain was being tried, and when we got there, we were told he wasn't allowed any visitors. Cue another explosion from Trip and more near implosions from Malcolm.

It took another day before Phlox came up with the plan: We told the Klingons that Captain Archer suffered from a disease that required medical treatment. I think I held my breath most of the time until Phlox came back--apparently the Captain was doing pretty well, if a bit hungry because Klingon food is just that terrible.

Then we just had to wait. The Klingons refused to give us any details about how the trial was going, except that the captain was "honored by the appointment of Kolos as his advocate." And the Klingon who told us that didn't look any too pleased that the captain was given this honor.

That was pretty much the last information we received, up until the moment they announced the verdict: Guilty.

The magistrate, thanks to all the things Enterprise has done for the Empire--uncovering a plot to infiltrate them, saving a freighter--chose to commute the death sentence.

So, he sentenced him to hard labor in the Rura Penthe dilithium mines, and then, when Kolos objected, the advocate got sent there as well.

Captain Archer says we shouldn't blame Kolos for the guilty verdict, that he did the best he could in an impossible situation. He says his speech was pretty inspiring, in fact. (I'll take that with a grain of salt, though, since the captain is not exactly known for his ability to concoct inspiring speeches, for instance, there's his penchant for animal analogies...)

T'Pol and Trip argued over attempting a rescue, but the Sub-commander convinced us that, deep in the heart of the Empire, it wasn't exactly advisable for us to try and attack a prison transport. Well, there's also the fact that Captain Archer essentially ordered us not to endanger ourselves attempting his rescue. Naturally we'd ignore that if we had half a chance--even a quarter of a chance.

So, the captain labored in the dilithium mine while T'Pol found old contacts of hers throughout the Klingon bureaucracy. She was absolutely amazing! She refused to give up, just kept working through every Klingon she knew and every other Klingon *they* knew, until she found the right palms to cross with currency. Who would have thought a *logical* Vulcan could be so darned *sneaky*. Even Trip and Malcolm were impressed.

After a great many bribes, we were sent to the captain of a dilithium hauler and some guards who were willing to be bribed themselves. Malcolm was smuggled down to the mines to find Captain Archer. He said it was cold, barren, and generally miserable, something like New York City in the winter. Ah yes, Malcolm humor--seldom seen, but always worth a chuckle.

So, he went in and nearly had to drag the captain out of there, since there was a very short window in which the bribed guards were in control. The captain used much of that time trying to convince Kolos to come with him, but the advocate insisted that the only way he was going to change the Klingon system was from within.

I never met Kolos, but from what the captain says, he sounds like our kind of guy! I wish him all possible luck.

Mind you, I'm very glad we got the captain back in one piece, but I wonder what the consequences of this particular rescue are going to be. I mean, surely even the Klingons will notice that one of their prisoners has escaped! How are they going to react? Somehow I doubt this is going to do good things for Qo'nos-Earth relations.

But how could we have done anything else? Even T'Pol in her caution, and Malcolm in his paranoia, wouldn't have left these people to be tried and executed by the Klingons for the horrible crime of trying to survive. This was a no-win situation if I ever saw one.

One thing I've learned in over a year aboard Enterprise is that the crew of a ship takes its mood from the captain, so with some certainty I can say that the predominant mood right now is gloomy. We're all thinking about Kolos and the Klingons and all the other colonies out there being occupied. These are not thoughts guaranteed to make one feel better, let me tell you.

Great, I've written you another letter filled with doom and gloom. You must think that all we do out here is sit around and angst. To prove that incorrect, let me assure you that as soon as I finish, I'm on my way to movie night with Trip and Em. They've promised me a light-hearted comedy, and they'd better deliver!

I hope all is well on Earth, and that you and Amanda are happy. Thanks very much for sending the pictures. They made me homesick--but in a good way, if that makes any sense. With this letter, I'm sending some pictures that Trip has taken of the crew. I think you'll really like the food fight one. Remind me to tell you that story some day. Be well!

Love,  
Hoshi


	29. After "Horizon" and "The Breach"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry you don't get two separate letters, but RL kinda sucks. Thanks for the beta to Captain Average, the superhero with dental issues even worse than mine.
> 
> Once again, to Jessica. Long distance hugs and get better soon.

Dear Annie,

Can you imagine two groups of people who hate each other so much that they have a series of wars, then literally have no contact for 300 years? Apparently, that's been the case between the Denobulans and this other race called the Antarans.

We only found this out because an Antaran ended up in sickbay and refused to let Phlox treat him. Why he was there at all has to do with a message from the Denobulan Science Academy that arrived for Phlox. It seemed pretty urgent, and I needed an excuse to get off the bridge for a few minutes, so I ran the card down to him personally.

He was feeding his menagerie and introduced me to the cutest little furry thing you've ever seen, called a tribble. Unfortunately, this tribble wasn't one of his medical creatures--it was lunch for something else. I gave him his message and left rather abruptly for the bridge. Call me crazy, but I find it unsettling when things in cages eat moderately large furry animals.

The Denobulans asked Enterprise to divert to a nearby planet that--due to a recent revolution--had taken a turn for the xenophobic, and wanted all the aliens to disappear. Apparently the Xantorians were perfectly willing to shoot anyone who wasn't gone by their deadline. Unfortunately, a group of Denobulan geologists were deep inside a series of caverns and couldn't be reached via comm.

So, our experienced climber, Travis, took Trip and Malcolm on a rescue mission while Captain Archer negotiated a three-day hold on shooting aliens on sight. In theory, Enterprise planned to spend those three days waiting, but I was listening to the evacuation and the tumult on the planet, and I heard one of the refugee ships in deep trouble.

They had a warp core breach and needed to land and get immediate medical attention for their crew, but the Xantorian government wouldn't let them. Naturally, we couldn't just let them get blown up or die of their injuries! So, we grappled the ship, took the wounded to sickbay, and sent our engineers to help repair the ship. I'm sure Hess was missing Trip, but she did a great job. I think I heard the captain say something about a commendation for her, which I know will thrill her!

And Phlox did his usual amazing job healing the wounded and juggling an overloaded sickbay, until this Antaran arrived. While the guy was unconscious, it was okay, but once he was stabilized and Phlox needed to do some sort of cellular repair, he awoke and refused to be treated by a Denobulan.

Meanwhile, Travis, Malcolm, and Trip trekked through these caverns and managed to slip and slide their way into an injury for Travis--a broken ankle and some torn ligaments. Why does he like climbing so much if he always hurts himself? Although this time it was apparently Malcolm's fault.

Poor Travis. He's really been having a tough time recently. We doubled back toward Earth a few weeks ago, and happened to pass right near his parents' cargo ship, the Horizon, so he thought he'd drop in for a few days of leave. Then just before the rendezvous, he got a message that his father had died, before Travis got to talk to him. God, he was devastated, our usually cheerful boomer, he wouldn't talk to anyone.

Well, he did end up taking his leave on the Horizon, and he's been happier since--now that he got to work some unresolved things out with his family. Still, he didn't need to come back and immediately hurt himself.

Unfortunately, he did, and Trip and Malcolm had to leave him behind to keep looking for the scientists. When I went to visit Travis in sickbay, he said he wasn't that concerned about being stuck and injured, but he was absolutely *terrified* that they'd hurt themselves or get lost without him.

Meanwhile, our Antaran patient still refused to be treated, and I have a suspicion the captain tried to order Phlox to conduct the procedure anyway. (It's kind of a catchphrase around here: "That's an order, Ensign.") I remember the uproar when Alison (that's Crewman Rhodes) refused to let Phlox use one of his particularly creepy crawlies, saying she'd rather let her wound heal more slowly. Liz was in the corner laughing hysterically and she said Phlox tried to convince her, but since Alison was adamant, Phlox backed off. Mind you, Alison was back a week later, in serious pain, but Phlox refused to treat her against her wishes, so I doubt he'd have treated this Antaran, no matter what the captain said.

I'm basing all this speculation purely on my knowledge of Phlox and the captain, mind you, and the frustration on both their faces throughout this entire experience. I really wish there was more cultural information available on the Denobulans, so I could help the captain understand the doctor. Those insular Denobulans don't exactly welcome cultural anthros with open arms.

I wish I could have been there to see how Phlox convinced the obstinate Antaran--I'll bet it was an interesting cultural clash. But I suppose the important thing is that he succeeded, the surgery was done, and the Antaran survived. It gives you a little bit of hope about the fate of the universe, doesn't it?

Trip and Malcolm used this time to find our lost sheep, er, Denobulans, only the obstinate idiots didn't want to leave. They said they weren't in any danger from the Xantorians where they were, proving they hadn't listened to a thing they'd been told. Trip says he was standing there, filthy, tired, frantic about the situation on the surface, and these smug Denobulans dismissed him--that was it, he lost his temper. By the time he was telling me about it, he couldn't remember exactly what he said in his fury, except that it involved the threat to tie them up and drag them out personally.

Whatever he said, it worked and they were on their way back. Mind you, *we* didn't know that, and as the deadline for the Xantorians to start shooting approached, we got antsy. I was scanning every comm signal on the planet, desperate to hear their voices, and the captain divided his time between hovering over my shoulder and checking on the repairs to the evacuation ship.

But I heard nothing. Well, that's not precisely true--I heard dozens of escaping refugee ships, terrified families uprooted from their homes, visiting scientists and exchange students thrown out on their ears. No sign of our crew or the missing Denobulans as the deadline rapidly approached, and Captain Archer was nearly apoplectic.

But that apoplexy was dwarfed by his fury when a Xantorian patrol started shooting at the area above the caverns. The captain had me get the governor on the line and the sanctimonious bastard had the nerve to say the patrol was shooting at soldiers from the previous regime, and it had nothing to do with us.

That was truly the final straw for the captain, who had T'Pol arm our weapons systems, and threatened to destroy the patrol if they didn't stop shooting. He essentially told the governor that if he didn't let our people get out unmolested, he'd be starting a war with Earth before the weapons were even cold on their little revolution.

It was a bluff, pure bluff. Okay, sure, we might have been able to destroy their patrol ships, but there's no way we have the authority to declare war...but the governor was apparently worried enough that he stopped the patrol. And then we waited. And waited.

Two long and painful hours after the deadline, we finally got word from the shuttlepod that everyone (even the scientists) were safely aboard. They took off and were making their way out of the atmosphere, when a patrol ship started shooting at them. That patrol was moments away from being blown out of the sky, when Trip and Malcolm told us not to shoot, it was warning shots instead of killing shots.

The shuttlepod made it safely back, thank goodness, and we transferred the Denobulan scientists as well as the Antaran onto a transport ship heading in the direction of their homeworlds. That was a little adventure in and of itself, involving a long conversation between Phlox and the scientists, before they agreed to ride on the same transport--as long as the Antaran agreed.

We'll never know how that goes, unfortunately. Will the Denobulans and the Antarans spend the entire trip avoiding each other? Maybe they'll have a frank conversation, leading to further rapprochement. A girl can dream, right?

I hope all is well at home by the time you get this message. I'm terribly sorry to hear about your knee, but I'm sure that the doctors will figure out what's wrong and make it better. Long distance hugs and get well soon, okay? Tell Amanda I said to pamper you, because you deserve it.

Love,  
Hoshi


	30. After "Cogenitor"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The quote I attribute to Annie was actually said to me by Jess many years ago. It's just one of many reasons this series is dedicated to her. Thanks as always for the beta to Captain Average, the superhero who praises.

Dear Annie,

Trip really got into it this time. And the worst thing is, while it's easy to see how stupid he was in retrospect, I don't know that I would have acted any differently.

Practically for the first time on this voyage, we met a friendly species called the Vissians. Not fake friendly, either, really truly interested in meeting other species and talking to them. We ran into the Vissian ship when we diverted to check out a hypergiant, an incipient supernova, and saw a ship closer in than we could go.

The captain had me hail them, they offered to help modify our sensors to gather more data, and we invited them for dinner. (Interesting side note for you: Apparently they found human food rather bland, not in taste, but in smell--which is more important to them. I'll send you my notes under separate cover.)

In any case, several of their crewmembers came and we introduced them to various foods, and they introduced us to the fact their species has three sexes: male, female, and cogenitor. The latter, who make up approximately 3% of their population, provides a vital role in creating a child, some enzyme apparently.

Trip and a few other folks were pretty weirded out by this, although most of the crew took it in stride. Honestly, compared to the space station that tried to use Travis as a calculator, and the time Trip got pregnant, a little thing like a third sex just isn't a big deal. (Although I wonder if the pregnancy thing is what made him so uncomfortable with the idea of a sex/gender setup unlike human-standard?)

The chief engineer of the Vissian ship and his wife were the ones trying to have a baby, and they invited Trip over to see the engines. He seemed uncomfortable, but I think he'd have walked through fire to see their engines, so it all balanced out.

Meanwhile, our captain set off in a little pod with the Vissian captain to go see the inside of this hypergiant. The Vissians asked me nicely, so I gave them some cultural files, like a complete Shakespeare and the Tao Te Ching, all of which they loved. These aliens read and learn incredibly fast.

Trip came back from the Vissian ship coveting their engines and even more bothered by the cogenitor. Or rather, bothered by how the Vissians treat the cogenitor, which is rather like a pet. Cogenitors aren't taught to read and don't really live like the rest of the population. I know Phlox and T'Pol tried to explain that we couldn't judge Vissian culture by our own, or by the tiny slice of it we saw, but he didn't listen. I swear, that man redefines the word stubborn!

Despite everything he was told, Trip still snuck away from his Vissian hosts to talk to the cogenitor, teaching it how to read. After that, he brought it to Enterprise for a tour, and they apparently watched some movies. I haven't gotten many of the details out of Trip because he's been staying in his quarters since...well, since everything went wrong.

When the Vissians realized what was going on, they kicked him off their ship, but it was too late--the cogenitor escaped and requested asylum aboard Enterprise. And that's when the captain got back and flipped out.

Just between you and me, though, I think Captain Archer is being a bit hypocritical, because he's certainly intervened in plenty of situations without sufficient information. Remember when I told you he helped the X escape from a prison camp? Classic case of act first, justify later.

But he's the captain and the decision of whether to grant asylum was in his hands. He talked to T'Pol and met with some of the Vissians, in the end deciding to send the cogenitor back. Trip was pissed, and I'll admit I wasn't too pleased, but no way was I getting between Trip and Jon when they're fighting. I'd rather face down an angry Klingon.

Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, I got a call from the Vissian captain, sounding a lot less happy to be talking to humans, demanding to speak to Captain Archer. I found him in his quarters.

It turns out the cogenitor killed itself.

The ship's pretty tense right now. The captain can't decide whether he's angrier at himself, or at Trip, or at T'Pol for not stopping everything. He's just generally angry.

Trip has barely spoken to anyone since we got the news, so I finally trapped him in his quarters--he's devastated; blaming himself, blaming the Vissians, blaming the captain. He introduced the cogenitor to all the possibilities inherent in sentience, then it had to go back to captivity.

Which brings me back to my original point. It's easy for me to look at this situation in retrospect and invoke cultural relativism to explain why Trip did the wrong thing. But, as you once said to me so succinctly, "Cultural relativism is not moral relativism." If I'd been in Trip's shoes, could I have left things alone? Or would I have done the same thing?

I like to think that my anthropological training would protect me from the same mistakes, but the history of our field says otherwise. A lesson in humility for all of us, I think.

Love,

Hoshi


	31. After "Regeneration"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, my eternal gratitude for the beta goes to Captain Average.

Dear Annie,

I'm sure the news coverage of our latest adventure completely missed the mark--it always does. Even if it was close to accurate, no talking head who wasn't there could convey to you what it felt like to encounter this latest...I'm not even sure what to call them. Menace?

What *do* you call a species that reproduces itself by taking over the body of other species and just dragging them along for the ride? Parasite, I suppose.

I'm fairly certain you've heard about the expedition to the Arctic Circle that disappeared, right? Well, they found these remains, alien remains, but several different aliens with a ton of mechanical parts. Cyborgs, I guess. I find it hard to believe, but these cyborgs woke up after being frozen for at least one hundred years. Then they took over the scientists on the expedition.

I didn't recognize most of the scientists' names, but one of the archaeologists was Marian King. Remember her? She gave that guest lecture in Barbara's class, and Mark decided he was in love. Mooned over her for a month, as I recall.

She's gone, you know. They're all gone. We couldn't save them.

They started turning into cyborgs and took off in a shuttle, forcing us to chase after them.

We only tracked them down when I got a distress call from a freighter. Thank goodness the message was in a language related to one already in the UT, or I'd never have been able to translate it quickly enough.

By the time we got to the freighter, though, the cyborgs had done a lot of damage, but we managed to find two of the aliens alive. We got them to sickbay, but Phlox found they'd been injected with nanoprobes that seemed to be turning them into cyborgs.

Malcolm wasn't any too thrilled about having these guys on board, but we couldn't leave them to die, so he posted a guard. Meanwhile, the captain and T'Pol started looking for information on these things, these cyborgs.

Buried in the later years of Zephram Cochrane's life, Captain Archer found a story about cybernetic aliens from the future. It was during one of his more pickled periods and he immediately recanted the tale when he sobered up, so nobody took it seriously. T'Pol is frankly skeptical, and despite the captain's enthusiasm, I lean in her direction.

Okay, we encountered strange cyborgs, but that doesn't automatically validate the drunken ramblings of Cochrane, no matter how much Captain Archer worships the man.

But that's beside the point. Of much more concern to me were the two aliens in sickbay, who woke up and attacked Phlox, injecting him with the same nanoprobes. Then they began climbing through the ship, just as we resumed our chase of the transport containing the other cyborgs.

I'll be honest, between expecting these aliens to jump me in a corridor, or their buddies to blow us up, I was terrified. I was even more scared for Malcolm and his team--chasing the cyborgs throughout the ship and finally, cornering them in a section where they'd begun modifying the ship in some way.

Somehow the cyborgs were able to shield themselves against phase pistols, so the captain made the only decision he could. He cleared the section and blew the hatch--venting them into space before they could do any further damage, or attack anyone else. It was heartrending to watch him: desperately wanting to save these two aliens, whose species name we didn't even know, but unable to sacrifice his crew.

Then we settled in for the long chase after the transport. I went to the mess to get something for Phlox and his menagerie, since I suspected he might forget to eat. Chef (who adores Phlox's love of food) sent all his favorites.

Phlox looked even worse than I expected, tired and scared and frantic to figure out what was happening. He refused to eat, lest it fuel the nanoprobes, and he didn't even want me to stay in sickbay.

It hurt to leave him. I kept thinking of all the hours he's spent fixing our injuries, both physical and mental. He was really my first friend aboard, and he's still one of the first people I come to when I'm sad or homesick.

But he was so afraid of turning into a cyborg and hurting me that I had to leave. I was actually upsetting him instead of comforting.

The engineering staff was trying to undo what the cyborgs had done, but it was slow going. Then we found the shuttle.

We came roaring up, guns metaphorically blazing. I say metaphorically, because the captain and T'Pol weren't in agreement over whether we should simply destroy the transport or try to save the people inside. It was always possible that Phlox might find some sort of "cure" for the nanoprobes.

But it became rather a moot point when the transport sent a signal that activated the cybernetic bits that our proto-cyborgs had installed, and the signal shut down most of our power. It became a race between Trip trying to undo what they'd done, and the cyborgs aboard the shuttle.

They'd tricked us, lured us into bringing our booby-trapped ship to them, and they were going to turn us into cyborgs as well. So, while Trip got as much working as he could, Malcolm and the captain used the transporter to get aboard the shuttle and plant a bomb.

It was nerve-wracking, sitting on the bridge, wondering which side would win. The cyborgs made it aboard our ship, but thankfully they didn't manage to inject anyone else before the shuttle beamed them back, just in time to get blown up.

So that left just one person alive and infected by nanoprobes: Phlox. Somehow, while power was fluctuating left and right, he managed to dose himself with some kind of radiation that killed the nanoprobes.

But while he was under their influence, he says he remembers a message being sent out--it wasn't a very complicated code, so I cracked it. The cyborgs were giving our location to the folks back home. From the distance the message was intended to travel, it looks like we've got some time--in the realm of several centuries--but eventually they'll be back. And I doubt they'll be very happy with humans.

Well, they can join the club.

Love,

Hoshi


	32. After "First Flight" and "Bounty"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been procrastinating on finishing off the season for long, it took another commitment to goad me back to this...In any case, thanks as always go to Captain Average for the stupendous beta.

Dear Annie,

You haven't lived until you've seen a dark matter nebula lit up like a fireworks display. It was so beautiful, so awe-inspiring, it *almost* made everything else worthwhile. I hope Captain Archer feels the same way, because he's been having a particularly rough time of it recently.

The beauty of the nebula was also a nice change of pace from our usual hectic schedule of getting injured, shot at, and insulted in new and exciting languages. Mind you, T'Pol wasn't entirely certain there *was* such a thing as a dark matter nebula, so naturally the captain had to prove her wrong. He and Trip came up with a plan to shoot some kind of charge that would make the dark matter show itself. Don't ask me to explain it, I'm no physicist, as you well know.

The captain and Trip were having a pretty good time until Admiral Forrest called with bad news: one of the men who'd worked on the NX project with them was killed recently in a climbing accident. I suppose Captain Archer wanted to be alone, because he jumped in a shuttle to go shoot charges at dark matter, leaving poor Trip behind. At the last minute, T'Pol insisted on going, so at least he wasn't flying around alone.

When I got off duty, I found Trip sulking in engineering and dragged him to get some dinner. It took half an hour to make him a bit less grumpy, but finally he told me the story of how he met the captain and all about the man who died.

Trip was a lieutenant working on the NX program and the captain and this other man (AG Robinson), were test pilots. Robinson was chosen to fly the first test flight. He screwed up by refusing to abort, blowing up the ship and nearly dying in the process.

The Vulcans panicked, Starfleet panicked, and the NX program was shut down. But the captain, Trip, and Robinson conspired to--get this--steal the other prototype to prove that the design worked.

Trip didn't put it this way, but I get the feeling that one of the reasons Captain Archer and Trip are such good friends is the faith that Trip showed in Henry Archer's engines. There aren't many things in the world that mean more to Captain Archer. Of course, I would imagine it doesn't hurt that the first time they met, Trip was apparently busy yelling at a bunch of high-handed, interfering Vulcans. Some things never change.

Anyway, Robinson and the captain flew the prototype, leaving Trip to get taken into custody by Starfleet. But it didn't matter because they'd already proved that the design worked, it could fly above warp 2.

Forrest couldn't decide if he was excited or pissed as hell, apparently, and he bawled out all three of them. But the project was back in business, as even the Vulcans couldn't argue with a successful flight.

Trip was very nostalgic about the engineering and the time he spent working with the captain, but a bit less so about Robinson. "I never liked the sonuvabitch that much," he said, "but Jon did, and I worshipped Jon. And he seems pretty broken up about AG's death."

Just then, somebody behind me shouted, and we both nearly fell out of our seats. But when we looked out the windows in the mess, we forgot everything else. Trip's charges had done the trick and the dark matter nebula glowed like nothing I'd ever seen before.

The captain was looking a lot less stressed by the time he and T'Pol returned to the ship. I wonder what the two of them talked about while they were out there.

Anyway, it's too bad things couldn't stay so peaceful for very long. We did some exploring in that sector, finding what the astronomers and physicists assure me are some fascinating stellar phenomena.

The geologists went gaga over one particular planet that was uninhabited, but had a breathable atmosphere, so T'Pol, Trip, and the captain took a couple of teams down to explore. They were really enjoying themselves, too, so I hated to interrupt, but a Tellarite ship showed up and demanded to talk to the captain.

He, Trip, and T'Pol all came up, but T'Pol got stuck in decon. The Tellarite was very strange, first quite rude (as we'd been assured Tellarites acted normally), then offering to show the captain around the planet. Over Malcolm's objections, the captain agreed, and the Tellarite docked with Enterprise and Trip and the captain went down to meet him.

Next thing I knew, my sensors lit up, informing me of weapon fire on D deck! Before security could get there, the Tellarite ship broke away--taking a few bits of Enterprise with it...such as our captain.

Unfortunately, with T'Pol stuck in decon for the foreseeable future and the captain gone missing, Trip was stuck in command, instead of supervising the repair of his beloved ship.

The repairs went quickly, although, between Trip pacing and Malcolm's sotto voce cursing, it seemed an interminable wait to those of us on the bridge. They always forget how good my hearing is, you know. I was impressed, though, as I didn't realize he could curse in quite so many languages. If his repertoire could be expanded, we might just make a linguist out of him yet.

With repairs completed, we began tracking the Tellarite ship, all of us trying to figure out how we were going to get the captain back without blowing it up. When we dropped out of warp and found...a decoy, emitting a facsimile of the Tellarite ship's signal.

We had to start over, which led to more cursing. T'Pol was still out of commission and we were starting to get worried. I don't think any of us had realized what a calming influence she is when she's present. Not to mention, she builds a mean escape plan when necessary.

We found the signal again and, hoping against hope the Tellarite only had one decoy, set off at top speed.

By the time we found the source of the signal, the Tellarite was gone. Another ship was there, the sole occupant was doing some repairs, so we contacted him. He told us the captain was "probably halfway to Klingon space by now."

I suppose we shouldn't have been surprised that the Klingons want him back, but it's been a while since we got him out of Rura Penthe. I suppose we'd put the problem out of our minds and gone on with our jobs. Malcolm's low cursing became so creative, I started to think there might be a monograph in it.

Trip ordered us on our way to Klingon space and went back to wearing a hole in the deck plating. (Apparently they teach pacing the deck in command school. Who knew?) Just when we really needed T'Pol back on the bridge, she must have taken a turn for the worse. Phlox said she'd left sickbay and we had to evacuate the rest of the deck and send down a security team in EV suits to find her. Malcolm had to stun her, but at least he got her back into treatment. Poor guy. Not only did he have to shoot a woman he...admires, but he had to shoot a superior officer. Kind of a nightmarish day for an armory officer, what with having lost his captain earlier.

Just when we were beginning to despair of finding our captain, a message came in. From the Tellarite. Trip looking ready to shoot the guy personally, but thankfully the sense of the message got through before Trip said anything rash.

On the Tellarite's instructions, we took off at top speed for the Klingon ship that now had Captain Archer--depending on the word of the alien who had kidnapped him in the first place.

We arrived just as an escape pod ejected from the Klingon ship and they were maneuvering to grab it. In a brilliant piece of flying, Travis got us in, grappled the escape pod into launch bay two, and got us out of Dodge.

The captain looked a bit worse for wear, but Phlox was able to fix him up pretty quickly. Ah yes, Phlox, our friendly neighborhood miracle worker. Happily, while the captain was shooting his way off the Klingon ship, Phlox was finally curing T'Pol. She walked onto the bridge along with the captain by the time our next shifts rolled around. I think if she hadn't frowned so repressively at us, we might have cheered.

It felt good to have things back to normal. And poor Trip, I've never seen him *so* happy to give up that captain's chair. He practically ran off the bridge in order to get to engineering.

We've got everyone back safely, and the ship is more or less back in one piece. Not bad. I'll count that as a win, I think. It makes me yearn for the days when my biggest problems were being turned down for a date by that guy from Mexico (what *was* his name again, anyway?) or the possibility of getting a B+ on an exam instead of an A because you dragged me out the night before.

Well, at least I only have to worry about the crew's safety, not yours. At least as long as you don't go climbing any mountains! But I know that's about as likely as me becoming an avid spelunker, so I won't worry. Hugs to everyone.

Love,

Hoshi


	33. After "The Expanse"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, folks, this is the end of the line for regular additions to this series. I'm tired and I've got a lot of other writing I want to get on with! But let me take this opportunity to thank Captain Average for his patient yet speedy betas of almost every single letter. Cap's kept me grammatical and on track, and often contributed wonderful ideas to these letters. Thanks also to everyone who told me how much they liked the series and how much they wanted to get to meet Annie. Without you folks, there would never have been a series.

Dear Annie,

I'm so glad I got a chance to spend some time with you and the gang and finally meet Amanda. I just wish it hadn't been under such horrible circumstances.

My mother kept begging me to stay on Earth where it was safe, instead of charging off into the Expanse. I tried to be patient, but I kept wanting to yell, "Haven't you seen the pictures? Why do you think Earth is any safer?"

It's still too much to take in, you know--seven million dead, all that land plowed up, turned into a desolate canyon. Some people made pilgrimages there--to mourn the dead, to pray, to stoke their anger--but I couldn't. I couldn't face the reality. The pictures Starfleet sent were more than enough.

Trip went down to look at what used to be his home, where Lizzie was living. It's pretty much a given she's dead, since nobody's heard from her. Malcolm went with him and they both came back grim and focused, but while Malcolm's managed to relax a bit, Trip just gets angrier and angrier. I'm worried.

He lost it at Malcolm in the middle of a corridor even, when Malcolm tried to get him to talk about Lizzie. How's *that* for a role reversal?

Malcolm's been bleeding off his aggression with his new toys--some kind of fancy torpedo--and in the gym, working out with our new military contingent. It feels strange to have them here, especially since it's still unclear where they fall in the hierarchy.

They've been keeping to themselves mostly, sitting together and eating at odd hours, working out together, spending time in their quarters. So far they haven't come to movie night either. I've managed a bit of light conversation with two of the guys, but that's it.

They're rather handsome men, really. Where do they find these guys, I wonder?

Damn. It feels...superficial to think like that. I forget for a few moments why we're heading toward the Delphic Expanse, and pause to admire the looks of Corporal Romero. Then I remember, and I choke up.

Phlox says it's a normal reaction, that even though I didn't lose anyone close to me, just viewing the pictures can cause post-traumatic stress.

I'm so glad he decided to stay on board, it's been great to be able to go down to talk to someone whose planet wasn't just attacked, someone who can be objective about the whole mission. Not to mention someone who always has something wise or comforting or funny to say.

He's kind of my substitute for you, I guess. Keeps me sane in between your letters. A tough job but somebody's gotta do it.

Sure, the guys usually help too. But Malcolm's been busy with our new additions and Travis hasn't had the heart for any good practical jokes and Trip is barely talking to anyone. I'm really worried about him. I said that already, didn't I? It's just...no smiles, no laughter, nothing but work and sleep and alcohol.

And the captain's not much better. I'm not sure he's even noticed how badly off Trip is. I suggested to Trip he might want to speak to Phlox and he said some rather hurtful things I've chosen to ignore. Then I suggested to Phlox that he speak to Trip and he said that Trip needed to acknowledge he needs help first.

Great. It's like a catch-22. Am I just supposed to watch Trip disintegrate? I'll have to think about this problem.

So, we're in the Expanse and things are peaceful right now. Getting in here was another matter, of course. So many things have happened, I can't think where to start.

Oh, I forgot to say that T'Pol elected to stay aboard. We were on our way to drop her off on Vulcan, when the captain came out of his ready room and told Travis to set a course for the Expanse, because we weren't going to Vulcan. I wanted to grin at T'Pol, but figured the gesture would be lost on her.

Then there was the long grind of getting here. The biggest problem was cabin fever, combined with a crew that still hasn't recovered from the attack on Earth. We've got a strange form of survivor's guilt about having been light years away when it happened.

Out of the blue, people say things like, "You know, I was in Florida just before Enterprise's launch," or "My cousin used to live in Venezuela and I visited her every summer."

Somehow it seems like every conversation leads to somebody's sister's husband's old babysitter who hasn't been heard from since That Day. Do people still say it like that on Earth? You know, capital letters as if there've been no other events worth mentioning? Phlox says that's normal too, that we can't stop talking about it, and eventually, it will fade a bit in our memory. I can't wait.

Well, this may be my last letter for a while, since who knows what communications are going to be like from here on out. You take care of yourself and the wonderful woman who's foolish enough to love you, okay? And if you could check in on my parents every once in a while, I'd appreciate it. I hadn't realized how worried they were until this visit, since their letters had seemed so calm.

We're off to find the Xindi. What we'll do when we find them...I can't think about that just yet. I'm torn between what I hope, what I believe, and what I'm afraid of.

Enterprise is out here to represent Earth to the rest of the universe. What we do now may very well affect humanity's place among all the races for generations to come. I'm terrified by the responsibility, but I couldn't possibly have let the ship leave without me, no matter what my mother said.

I'm here with my friends, my family, and we're going to do our best. I guess in the end that's all we can promise.

Take care, Annie. Keep me in your thoughts, as you'll be in mine even if we're out of touch.

Love,

Hoshi


End file.
